Falling Feels Like Flying
by erinflanagan
Summary: When Escher Griffin is taken hostage by a ressurected and desperate Doc Ock, she finds herself in the middle of a battle between the forces of good, evil, deadly assassins, and very spiffy science...LAST PART NOW UP.
1. Lazarus

**Falling Feels Like Flying**

_sooo hmm yeah. welcome spidey fans. i am listening to the spidey2 soundtrack right now. the fighty stuff was kind of constructed out of me listening to track 16 and seeing things in my head. i like it when that happens. but it is my first time writing description of action like this, so if it sucky, i apologize. to make up for it i will start the chapter with a gratituitous smart arsed quote, okie?  
wheeeeeee. enough! now on with the FUN._

**Part One- Lazarus**

_"Adventures! Nasty disturbing uncomfortable things! Make you late for dinner!"  
-The Hobbit, J.R.R Tolkien_

Escher Griffin was bored.  
Desperately, mind-numbingly so.  
She was so bored that, as every new customer approached her desk, her mind had begun inventing fanciful scenarios for each one, mostly involving wistful thoughts about the jar of sharpened Happy Dino© pencils which sat temptingly next to the cash register. Such thoughts were strictly un-customer-friendly, and no doubt her employers would not have looked kindly on such unprofessional daydreaming. But Escher was not professional, she was fourrteen, and she was very, very bored.  
Paradox Books was the largest bookstore in Manhattan. It was located in a prosperous commercial district, right opposite the famous New York Science Museum. It stocked practically every book imaginable, seven huge floors dedicated to the written word. It's owners had steered clear of what they saw as the deplorable 'supermarket' trend of other large bookstores, shunning such nasty things as coffee bars, audio sections, and elevators.  
Lately, however, the management had come to realise that by making their store about as interesting for the younger mind as watching paint dry they were missing out on a large share of the market. Responding swiftly, they commissioned a large Children's Section on the ground floor, complete with squashy beanbag seats and eye-watering promotional posters, and in order to really be seen to be 'relating to today's youth', they aquired a license to hire very young teenagers like Escher as till clerks to complete the image. The pay was good, the hours were short, and the job itself was easy.   
In Escher's opinion, it sucked.  
Today, she was doodling. The excessive heat had driven even the hardiest New Yorkers into the parks and pavement cafes, and during the two hours of her shift so far, she had served a grand total of five people, three of which were just looking for a water fountain. So Escher sat on the elegantly uncomfortable high stool, her hair stirred every quarter minute by the electric fan set up by the desk, and doodled.  
Her freckled nose was inches from the page, and her tongue protuded slightly, touching against the cool metal of her brace. The sketch book in front of her was covered in biro sketches, lines, spirals, and figures. Escher liked drawing, and wanted to be an artist some day. Currently, she was drawing a little pattern in the top corner of the page, parallel semicircles of angled lines spanned by long, expanding diagonals. A spiders' web.  
On the wall behind her, the sleek grey box which Escher had secretly christened 'that stupid damn ding-dong thing', ding-donged. She let out a pained breath, slipped the biro between her teeth and leaned backwards, her elbow clicking against the device's intercom switch.  
'Gthh?' She grimaced, and spat the biro out. 'I mean, yes?'  
'Escher?' The voice was crackly, male, and intended to sound imposing. It was also in the middle of breaking on an epic, rollercoaster scale. This one word alone encompassed about three octaves.  
'Derek.'  
'Are you busy?'  
Escher looked around the huge, deserted ground floor. A solitary fly buzzed around the ceiling.  
'No.' _And you know I'm not, Mister-Look-At-All-My-Neato-Security-Monitors. You're looking right at me._  
'Good, then you can go up to Stocks. The system says we need more display copies of 'The Last Lawnmower' by J. B Price. Ten should do it.'  
Click.  
Escher glared at the box as if it was in some way responsible. Stocks was on the seventh floor. She turned and looked up at the visuals-only security camera angled at her desk.  
'You complete bastard.' she said, smiling and nodding.  
Then, when this failed to make her feel any better, she sighed again, and turned to the computer to look up the ISBN number of the book. She decided to take her rucksack, just in case this 'The Last Lawnmower' turned out to be some kind of three-thousand-page epic. _One_ trip up to Stocks and back was bad enough.  
She put her sketchbook in the bag, out of habit, and stuck the biro in her pocket. With people like Derek in charge, she felt entirely justified in filching pens.

It took nearly ten minutes to climb the stairs, which were built in one massive stairwell on the east corner of the building. The air was hot and stuffy, and there was a strong smell of new carpets. The architect of the building, in a rare fit of creative passion, had covered the walls in huge, curved windows which allowed someone climbing the stairs to see out across the majestic spread of the city, although the effect was spoiled by all the taller buildings that had sprung up since the store was oringinally built. Now the windows showed the majestic spread of several looming grey stone walls, the busy intersection in front of the Science Museum, and a rather pathetic square of grass and sculpted bushes which someone had optimistically named 'Forest Parks'. The thick, smeary glass of the windows also had the effect of making Escher, toiling up the fourth flight, feel as if she was being fried like an ant under a magnifying glass. She sincerely regretted that morning's rebellious clothing decision which had made her choose a pair of baggy black combats instead of her light blue work trousers.  
'Shit monkeys.'  
The job had been her mother's idea, her high-flying work-driven mother to whom watching her daughter sit around drawing all summer was a nearly physical pain. Suzanne Griffin was a senior executive of the sucessful New York based perfume company, Emma Rose. She was a caring, intelligent woman, but the importance she placed on her career and her concerns for Escher's future had lead her to badger, hint, nag and generally force her into this bookstore job. Escher was still in two minds as to whether to ever forgive her. Especially when her little brother, Jamie, who in Escher's opinion was twice as lazy and ten times as spoilt, was allowed to spend all day running around the large roof top garden of their apartment building with his friends.  
Fifth floor, and Escher was interrupted from further thought by a stabbing stitch in her side. She sat down on the stairs to recover, staring out of the window at the banner-draped stone front of the Science Museum, which was now about level with her.  
_ Hadn't there been a big deal about the museum the other week?_ she thought idly. _Something about the prototype of a new invention…some high powered groundbreaking blahdy blahdy blah…being exhibited in the museum for a month before going on to tour Europe. Some whizzy one-of-a-kind…new…sciencey…thing._  
Escher wasn't really into science. Her life revolved around stories, stories in her books, stories by Lovecraft and Rice and Poe. The stories that she made up in her head, and scrawled in narrow-lined secret sketchbooks which one day she would turn into comics. And she loved comics, and the stories _they_ told, from made-up stories from Spawn to Lenore, to real-life stories so amazing they hardly seemed real, like Spiderman.  
Spiderman…  
…A flash of red and blue, a lithe streak against the azure sky, free-falling impossibly. Free-falling _upwards._  
Escher stood up, hands pressed against the heated glass pane. She was vaguely aware her mouth was hanging open. The tumbling shape touched briefly against the side of a wall five buildings away, and arced into the air again, in a move which surely defied the laws of gravity, not to mention common sense.  
No-one on the street below seemed to have noticed. Not even the queueing crowd that wove around the steps of the Science Museum, who would have had a clear view if they had only looked up. Escher felt the breath catch in her throat as the figure performed another impossible flip, and this time she was close enough to see the thin line of silver which shot from an ouflung arm, finding an anchor somewhere in the tangle of TV arials on top of the opposite building, now only two buildings down. The line stretched as the masked figure ran along the side of the building, a dizzying move which ended in a headlong diving swing right across the empty space above the park, snapping into a long horizontal arc which, at its widest point, passed not two feet from her window- so close that Escher found herself falling back against the curling stair rail behind her.  
'Showoff…' she breathed, her voice dazed with admiration and envy.  
Dropping the line, which caught the sun as it fell limply towards the road, the figure tumbled upright and dropped gracefully onto the triangular facade of the Science Museum, a carved, time-weathered affair which resembled a Greek temple. There it stopped, frozen against the tone, as if waiting for something.  
And now there was a sound, rising above the muted hum of the city, distant and urgent. Police sirens. Escher looked back at the crowd around the steps of the Museum, and realised that the random milling had turned into something different. People were running, streaming out through the big white doors and down the steps, shoving, pushing, panicking. Escher was suddenly reminded of a National Geographic documentary she'd seen at the weekend, which had showed a bunch of zebra stampeding away from a hunting cheetah in their midst. She'd missed the end, because her mother had switched it off around the point that blood had started to spatter the camera, but nevertheless the memory was enough to start a worried, sick forboding feeling in her stomach.  
Then…  
Noises are very difficult to write. Comic books, of the kind that Escher loved, used a sort of shorthand- for example, using the word POW to describe an explosion and letting the reader fill in the details for themselves. But the sound that hit Escher at that moment, shaking the building and throwing her off her feet, was just too _big,_ huge and complicated, to be simplified. It was a masonry-hurling, ground-shaking,  
KAAAWHOOOOOMPHHHHHHSSSHHHHHTHUDTHUDTHUDrumblerumbleWHAM.  
WHAM.  
WHAM.  
WHAM.  
SkreeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeTHUMP  
SSSSsssssssSSSHHhhhhhHHhhhhhHHHHH  
hisssSSSSSSsssssrattlerattle.  
Dust filled the air around Escher as she picked herself up off the floor, golden motes that flashed and drifted in the sun. She tasted blood and touched her lip, feeling stickiness. Grabbing for the stair rail, she stared, eyes wide, at the scene below.  
The front of the Science Museum had, mostly, gone. The steps, now free of people, were strewn with chunks of rubble up to and over the size of small cars. Clouds of brick dust and smoke were spiralling lazily skywards. Of the Spiderman there was no sign, and the elaborate facade which he had landed on just a few minutes ago had lurched to one side, losing half of its supports in the process, and come to rest hanging twenty feet or so above the wide hole where the doors had been. It looked, Escher thought, very unsafe. And then there had been that sound, towards the end, that frightening hissing which had sounded like no explosion or impact, but instead like the biggest snake…  
…snakes…  
…in the world.  
Miraculously, no-one in the stampede below seemed to have been hurt. As the dust began to settle and nothing further happened, a crowd started to gather at a safe distance from the debris, pressing forwards curiously.  
'You morons!' screamed Escher, hammering on the glass with both hands. 'HAVE NONE OF YOU EVER SEEN AN AN ACTION MOVIE?'  
And then it happened. Faster than she could blink, an olive-grey blur shot out of the ruined doors, a long, sinuous _something_ that shone dully as the light caught it. The end, outspread in a jointed, three-tongued claw, slammed into the sidewalk on the other side of the road, raising another thick cloud of dust. It was quickly joined by a second, which whipped out sideways and caught a fire hydrant side-on as it went, sending a plume of high-pressure water high into the air.  
Rising from the wreckage, drawn by the pull of the claws which were now both securely anchored in the buckled concrete, came a shape which up until that moment Escher had only seen in the blurred photos of the _Daily Bugle._  
The shape of a man, bulky in a long, trailing trenchcoat, from the back of which curled four huge metal tentacles. It was the lower two of these that were clamped into the sidewalk, and the upper two curved up and over his shoulders like the backbones of two skeletal wings. Suspended between the four tentacles, the man hung nearly ten foot off the ground.  
Escher's attention was suddenly distracted by a burst of sound from the other side of the square. Sirens wailing, three police cars drew up on the grass verge, their occupants spilling out to take up positions behind various statues and benches. A fourth slewed across the park, stopping only inches from the two anchored claws. Two cops jumped out, drawing their weapons.  
The taller cop yelled something at the suspended man, who turned, shrugging his shoulders to trigger a fluid movement which started with a shudder in the base of one tentacle and ended, seconds later, with the police car being thrown clear across the park, smashing through the window of a car showroom on the other side of the square.  
As inappropriate as it was, Escher couldn't help a _snerk_ of laughter at the looks on the faces of the two men, as they turned to stare at the place where their car had been. The giggle quickly died in her throat, however, as the lower tentacles shook themselves free of the ground, one after the other, walking their owner swiftly towards the two cops. As the monsterous, eight-limbed shadow fell across them, the men gaped helplessly, clearly frozen to the spot.  
The upper two tentacles drew back, tensed to strike…  
SHHHLLK  
…and couldn't move. The claw heads writhed, trying to open, glued shut by the thick strands of webbing that twined into strong, thin lines, lines that stretched through the air from the sturdy head of a nearby lamp-post. The figure swung around to see what had happened, snared tentacles thrashing like a violent dog on a leash.  
WHOOMPH.  
A blaze of red and dark blue shot from a side street and cannoned into the man at the centre of the robotic arms, Losing their grip on the ground, the two lower arms slid out from underneath their owner, who hit the ground in an untidy roll. Immediately, one of the tentacles was there, nudging the figure upright. Meanwhile the two trapped upper arms bunched in a combined effort, tearing the lamp-post right out of the sidewalk.  
This unusual missile, catapulted by the elastic string of web which still adhered to the tentacles, flew skywards in a deadly arc. The Spiderman, launching himself from the roof of a convenient taxi, shot a snaring web after it. His aim was perfect- but before it could hit, his tentacled adversary leapt into the air, all four limbs leaving the ground at once, and with one contemptuous shrug of an arm swiped the web aside. The same swipe sheared through the strands that glued one of the upper arms, which snapped out and caught the lamp-post just as it started to fall. The arm lashed out, forcing the masked hero to throw himself forward into a low dive to avoid the reach of this new weapon. Another lethal swipe, and this time the Spiderman jumped directly upwards, landing on the remains of the stone facade. Several chunks of debris slid from this unstable perch, and he stumbled as the facade keeled over a little further.  
The arrival of the lamp-post-wielding robotic arm spelled the end of this delicate balancing act, slamming into the stone a hair's breadth from the Spiderman's feet. With a rending groan, the whole thing gave way, sliding like a toppled tower of Lego bricks into the remains of the marble steps. For a heart-stopping moment, Escher thought that the hero had gone with it. Until she saw the thin line of the web, and traced it up…  
…and up…  
…until there _was_ no more up, until she was staring at the shadowy roof of the stairwell far above her head. Whatever relief she felt at this narrow escape faded as her gaze was dragged, slowly, inevitably, back downwards…  
And, as if on cue, she heard it.  
WHAM.  
WHAM.  
WHAM.  
WHAM.  
One after the other, far below her feet, getting louder with each sucessive blow, the terrible impacts climbed up the side of the Paradox Books building. And then, just as she thought that her teeth were going to be shaken right out of her mouth, they stopped.  
There was an ominous silence, broken only by the faint commotion in the street far below and the deafening thudding of her heart.   
She wanted run. But which way? Up was insanity, and down was worse. Like the hapless policemen, she felt rooted to the spot. Almost of its own accord, her hand crept to her pocket, where it encountered the small smooth length of the biro. She pulled it out and held it in front of her. The sheer stupidity of this made her want to laugh again.  
_ Could be worse. Could be made out of rubber._  
Suddenly, a long, dark shape - a tentacle - rippled up past the window, splitting the air with a dry hiss which carried through the glass. Midway, it met a falling red-and-blue figure, which actually landed on a curve of the limb with both feet and surfed downwards for a moment before leaping off. Another moment, and the eight-armed man rose into view, swinging one tentacle sideways in a vicious move which was clearly intended to squash the Spiderman against the window like a bug. The hero ducked, and leapt away as the arm hit the tempered glass pane, leaving a pretty pattern of cracks and an oily smear.  
Escher couldn't help it. She screamed.  
It wasn't a good scream. Terror had taken most of her breath, and anyway the slight build of her fourteen-year-old body was not designed for delivering the kind of operatic, prima donna screech that was suitable for occasions like this. But it was enough.  
The heads of both antagonists snapped around, all movement stopping in an instant. Escher stared into their faces, their hidden eyes- one pair frosty white and stylized, the other large, round, and jet black. She noted the thin, scored cut across the red cloth of the Spiderman's cheek, and saw the scratched skin beneath it. She noticed the brick dust that still clung to his enemy's hair, turning what looked like a shade of brown to patchy grey. A couple of seconds drifted by, long as years.  
Of the three, the Spiderman recovered quickest. While his adversary was still distracted, he let go of the wall and pushed off downwards, piledriving feet first into the man's shoulder. Even through the glass, Escher still heard the sickening _crack._  
The villain screamed, and the claw that Escher could see spasmed, releasing its hold on the wall. The Spiderman dodged the thrashing tentacle, throwing another punch at the man's face, and sending shards of black smoked glass glittering away into space.  
It seemed that all four arms lost their grip then, and their owner fell several feet before one of the claws lodged against the cornerstone and stopped him with a jerk, now exactly level with Escher's step. As the Spiderman backed off up the wall, his lean body tensing for a final attack, his enemy turned his head and looked straight at her.  
This time, beneath the shattered lenses of his sunglasses, she saw his eyes.  
Saw the decision.  
Escher watched, in the soothing calm that comes from extreme hysteria, as the fourth tentacle snaked into view. Time ran into treacle, following the lazy drift of the arm, curling towards her window with all the unstoppable force of continental drift. She saw the claw open, as pieces of glass exploded soundlessly outwards from the impact, and she saw the bright glow at its centre, a glow which looked just like an unblinking eye.  
…And then there was nothing.

_oooohhh. more soon folks. i guess. i like comments. a lot._


	2. Awakening

_mmkay…here we go. thanks for the reviews, they actually motivated me to g.o.m.b and write more. so go you. also thanks to the nice person who pointed out that Escher probably wouldn't be able to get a job like that at age 13. i totally didn't think about that ;; so i went back and fixed it. kind of. I also fixed the indentation so the paragraphs weren't so eye-aching to read.  
also, could someone please explain to me what 'mary-sueism' means? has nooooo idea. is brit. is dumb.  
i actually did my homework! woo! got me a map of NY and listened to the news. that is some intense research by my standards. fneep._

**Part Two- Awakening**

"…And finally, reports are coming in of an attempted burglary at the New York Museum of Science on 21st and 7th, Manhattan. Police have confirmed that the perpertrator was the dangerous criminal Dr. Otto Octavius, otherwise known as Doctor Octopus, who has been missing presumed dead since late June.  
Six people have been hospitalized with minor injuries after the incident, during which the front of the museum and several nearby buildings received extensive damage. The burglary itself appears to have been thwarted by the intervention of New York's masked vigilante superhero, Spiderman, but eyewitness accounts state that the offender escaped after taking a young girl hostage, forcing the police to withdraw.  
Despite a continuing police search of the enitire area, the identity of the girl is still not known. If you think you may have any information, ring our hotline, on 1800-531-5900. This is NYNewz, all news, all the time."

Slowly, Escher woke up. Awareness seeped back, bringing with it a confused bundle of recent memories, some of which were a bit...unlikely. The amazing battle…that had been real...but the green ponies and twinkly stars probably had more to do with the dull pounding in her skull than with reality.  
And something, something about flying…  
Where was she?  
The surface beneath her cheek was hard and gritty. She felt cold, the fine hairs rising on her arms. A thick smell assailed her, the musty clogging scent of rotting wood. It reminded her of the ancient P.E shed at her school, though without the rubber stink of old trainers. Remembering a book she had once read about toxic spores, she tried to breath lightly though her nose.  
So; old, wooden, stinky, and unless her ears decieved her, somewhere very near water. Escher felt pretty proud of her evidence-gathering - not bad at all considering she hadn't quite worked up the courage to open her eyes. Considering she'd recently been knocked unconscious by a deranged eight-limbed supervillian who everyone in the city had thought was dead, she felt she was to be congratulated on her calmness.  
Her head ached, with a repetitive throb that suggested it intended to keep it up all day. She swallowed, and tasted the sour tang of blood from her lip. And there was an odd sensation in her left wrist, too…not exactly hurting, just…constricted. Like she was wearing a bracelet.  
Her eyelids fluttering cautiously open, ready to feign sleep at any second, Escher found herself staring up into distant, gloom-shrouded rafters, long wooden beams that rose over her periphery to support a hole-studded, cobwebby ceiling. Cautiously, she shifted over onto her side, and immediately made her second nasty discovery.  
She _was_ wearing a 'bracelet', albiet a very ungainly one. It was made from thick, rusted iron, and it was attached to a bulky string of chain links some four feet in length, which looped across the bare floorboards from her wrist to the heavy wooden pillar nearest to her, wound three times around with enough force to splinter the wood. She was chained fast.  
She stared, her disoriented brain lurching along a nasty little chain of reasoning.  
_…scary tentacle thing POW this place is not bookstore/hospital now chained to wall = in biiiiig trouble._  
This seemed the perfect occasion to have the panic attack she'd had no time for earlier. It wasn't as if she had any other options. She was utterly trapped, in this shadow-haunted space that smelt like gym bags and mould. What if she'd been left here to die?  
Mentally, she slapped herself in the face. _Calm down, drama queen. Freaking out makes you vunerable, and this place looks like it EATS vunerable._  
She sat up and drew herself back against the wall, shivering as the damp chilled her through her T-shirt.  
The place was huge, a high-roofed rectangular shape like a warehouse or some other kind of storage space. Pillars rose at uneven intervals into the rafters, and others lay in pieces where they had fallen, rotted through or smashed. Where the walls met the roof a row of narrow windows ran around the entire length of the structure, though most were either boarded over or jagged holes. The few panes that were still intact were so filthy that they let in marginally less light than the wall.  
Escher pressed her hand against the greying plaster, only to snatch it back in revulsion as the soggy material fell away, revealing crumbling brick shot through with metal rivets that had long since corroded into nothing. The corner where she had been chained was one of the only places she could see where any plaster remained, and elsewhere the rivets ran across the brickwork like veins, weeping rust. It was a graveyard of a building, a giant decomposing carcass of wood and metal. It was…  
…starting to shake.  
Bits of dust and grit rattled on the floor, jumping in time with a series muffled rhythmic _thumps_ that got louder and nearer. Staring in the direction of the sound, Escher just managed to locate a gaping hollow space in the far wall before it was filled with the unmistakable shape of her captor.  
With a burst of speed unbelievable for something so heavy-looking, the lower tentacles 'walked' their owner from the doorway over to the centre of the floor. Escher could see that the man in the centre of the tentacles was bare-chested, his upper body supported by the curled embrace of the upper two claws, and from what little expression she could make out at this distance he seemed to be in great pain. His left arm hung uselessly, at an odd angle to his shoulder. Escher remembered the horrible noise she'd heard as she'd watched from her window, and winced despite herself.  
The lower tentacles retracted, bunching up into themselves until each was a mere six foot long, curving outwards so that the man's feet landed on the ground. Now unsupported, he walked a few shaky steps to the nearest upright pillar, pressing his forehead against the surface as he hugged it with his uninjured arm. Then he spoke, apparently into the wood. From her far corner, Escher just made out the words, low and taut with pain.  
'Do it.'  
Instantly, the upper pair of tentacles snapped to attention, one reaching down to brace itself against the man's left shoulder, the other encircling his upper arm in a firm and precise grip. Suddenly realising what was about to happen, Escher closed her eyes, but she still heard the _pop,_ heard the scream echo off the mouldering walls. Bad guy or not, she couldn't help a teeth-sucking hiss of sympathy.  
By the time she opened her eyes again, the man was kneeling on the floor, held up by one extended claw as another pair applied a pad of bandage to his shoulder, which was now at least the right sort of shape. The fourth arched over his head, holding the strap of a grey canvas bag. As the working arms finished bandaging, they swung up and dipped into the bag in a way which reminded Escher of feeding swans, resurfacing with various first aid supplies. Passing these things from one to the other like a well-practised juggling routine, they started to patch up their host's injuries.  
The arms worked swiftly and with incredible accuracy for things with such clumsy-looking pincers, carefully handling a glass bottle of antiseptic, unscrewing the top (though apparently having a little trouble with the child-safety cap) peeling the backs off of Band-Aids and even, as she could just make out, unfastening a safety pin to secure the bandage. Escher, who was always sceptically annoyed by things like magicians and puppeteers on TV, found herself watching for the trick.  
Finally, when the floorboards around them were littered with crumpled plaster backs and bits of gauze, the arms stopped. The lower claws planted themselves on the ground again, the metal segments extending until they lifted their owner gently off the ground.  
Escher pulled herself back into the shadows as far as she could go, holding her breath as her captor walked across the warehouse floor on his metal limbs. For a moment, she thought he was heading for her corner, but to her relief the regular, jarring steps continued past her to an alcove nearby.   
This area, she noticed for the first time, had been set up like some kind of haphazard study, with an old desk, a couple of packing crates full of books, and other ill-matched items. Looking extremely out of place in the midst of these makeshift furnishings, an incredibly expensive-looking laptop was wired up on the desk, surrounded by a clutter of other sleek, next-generation devices the function of which Escher could only guess at.  
Arriving at the desk, the arms lowered the man into a chair in front of the laptop. Watching him, Escher suffered from a moment of acute chair envy - the thing was a ergonomically designed artwork in grey chrome and leather, the sort of high-backed rotating masterpiece that would make a Bond villain weep. It had also been cleverly modified to make room for the tentacles.  
The man started to type. Even one-handed, with his recently-dislocated arm in a sling by his side, the rate of rapid clicking sounds from behind the chair's high back was fast enough to really impress Escher, whose own hunt-and-peck method left a lot to be desired.  
Three of the arms now trailed lazily near the floor, coiling back and forth. The fourth, however, remained extended into the air, the closed head swinging in a long, restless figure-of-eight.  
_A sentry,_ Escher realised with a chill.  
On its sixth scan of the warehouse, the head stopped, angled directly at her. She gasped as it snapped open, the red light at its centre flaring. The clicking sounds stopped.  
Escher thought her heart might have stopped as well. In the sudden silence she could hear every slight noise the arm made, a series of agitated rattling whines as the claws angled towards the figure in the chair. There was a long pause, and then the typing began again.  
'Don't worry.' said the man, but his voice was flat, dead. _He's not talking to me,_ thought Escher, as the sentry arm closed and moved back towards the desk.   
'…We'll take care of _that_ later.'

_thanks again to everyone who reviewded last time. next part things shall kick off, i'm hoping. specially as i think i'm getting the hang of writing Escher properly now. smoot._


	3. Bad Hostage Material

_oh my goodness. okay. thank you everyone who review'd so far again. damn, i keep saying that. it's my little stuck record of gratitude. Thanks to the shadowdemongengar dude who told me about the invizzible thing, is very useful. and also allison lane. looks like i'm going to have to be very careful avoiding that whole unbelievable extension of personality thing, then. have to say it didn't occur to me while plotting, but thinking about it you may be right to a scary extent…god knows i'd like to be 14 again…; ) my favorite artist is m.c escher. 'yanywhoo. engage optical data receivers! hee hee no i kid just use your eyes._

**Part Three- Bad Hostage Material**

'Bzzzzzzbrrbrbrbrrrr. Bzzzzzz. Brrrrr.'  
Five-year-old Jamie Griffin waved his G.I Joe doll over his head, circling it around the strip of black velvet he was using as the main runway of the international military airport he'd created on the living room rug. A stuffed cow sat against the couch, a pair of walkman headphones pulled over its felt ears.  
'Ground Control Cow, come in Ground Control Cow. Bzzzz. Brrbrrr. Splash!'  
'"Splash"?' said his mother, walking through from the big open-plan kitchen.  
'He went in the water.' explained Jamie, waving a crayon-stained hand at the G.I Joe, now face-down in the middle of a blue patch of rug.  
'I see, honey. Do you think Escher knows you're using her scarf?'  
Jamie's button nose wrinkled with the effort of thought. 'Maybe.'  
'I wonder where she's got to, anyway.' Suzanne Griffin sat down on the couch, undoing the buttons on her smart charcoal jacket. 'I told her to come straight back after work. What's happened to your sister, huh?' She reached down and tousled her son's hair.  
The little boy picked up the toy cow and started to tie it up in the headphone cord. After a moment a delighted grin spread across his freckly face.  
'A monster got her!' he giggled.  
'Now, Jamie, you shouldn't say things like that. If a monster really got her, you'd feel really bad, wouldn't you?'  
Jamie considered. This was the sister who'd once, aged twelve, tried to put him in the washing machine 'to see if he'd fit.'  
'Nope.' he said.  
His mother opened her mouth to rebuke him, but the sharp buzz of the doorbell cut her off. She got up and walked through the primrose-painted hallway, unlatching the dead-bolt from the polished pine door.  
'Escher? Did you forget your…'  
The two policemen who stood in her doorway shuffled back respectfully as she opened the door.  
'Mrs. Griffin?'  
It seemed to Suzanne that everything was suddenly too bright. The muted colours of the men's uniforms wavered in front of her eyes, like heat-haze on a highway.   
'…Yes?' she said.  
'It's about your daughter.'

Thunk.  
Thunk.  
Thunk.  
It was getting dark. Which was to say, the pertpetual gloom in the abandoned warehouse was slowly being replaced by an inkier shade, and the sky that Escher could see through the holes in the distant roof was fading from gold to grey.  
Thunk.  
Thunk.  
Thunk.  
Escher was bored again, bored out of her skull. She'd had to shift position on the floor a dozen times as pins and needles had set in, and as the hours had dragged on, she had turned out her pockets in an attempt to find something to take her mind off her predicament. The search had uncovered three paperclips, the biro, half of a Hersheys bar, and a little green rubber ball that she'd got from a quarter machine at the swimming pool. This she was bouncing against the wall, catching it in both hands, again and again.  
Thunk.  
Thunk.  
Thunk.  
Over in the alcove, the laptop had powered down of its own accord, the screen black and silent. Her captor, what little of him could be seen behind the chair back, seemed to have simply fallen asleep bent over the desk. She could see his right hand hanging down alongside three of his metal arms, which were completely still, their heads draped across the floor around the chair. The fourth, however, continued its ceaseless scanning, though it showed no further interest in her…  
Thunk.  
Thunk.  
Thunk.  
…or the noise.  
THUNK.  
Thrown too hard, the ball hit the wall and bounced off at an angle. She snatched for it, but it missed her hands, rolling across the grimy floorboards towards the desk. She could just make out the bright shape of it as it stopped against one of the resting tentacles with a faint resonating _dink._  
'Whoops.' murmured Escher. The arms were stirring now, not just the one but all of them, the lights at the centres of their heads appearing with the opening of each claw. In the red glow they cast, she saw the figure shift as he woke up. Lifting his head, he turned to look down at the little green toy on the floor.  
'Uh…' Escher wasn't quite sure what to say, especially when she saw the man turning towards her, his expression lost in the scarlet-tinged shadows.  
'Can…can I have my ball back, please?'  
There was a long pause. Then, slowly, deliberately, one tentacle inclined and picked the ball up carefully in its articulated fingers.  
And crushed it. Bits of crumbly green rubber pattered on the floor. Escher stared, and then to her own surprise felt a childish surge of anger, the universal rage of _you-broke-my-toy_ that is capable of making grown, intelligent men hit people with tyre irons because they ran into their new car.  
'Hey! That was mine!' she yelled.   
The figure made a movement which might have been a shrug, and turned back to the desk. But Escher discovered that the anger, though brief, had taken most of her fear with it. She waited a few minutes, and then cleared her throat.  
'You're Doctor…Octavius, aren't you?' she said, cautiously.  
In his chair, staring at the blank computer screen, Doctor Otto Octavius frowned. Truth be told, he hadn't heard anyone call him by that name for nearly two months. In fact, it had taken him a moment to recognise it.  
'Or do you, uh, prefer "Doctor Octopus?" That's what they always use in the paper and stuff.'  
The answer, when it came, was short and dismissive. 'I don't care.'  
'All right…then I'll go with Octavius.' Escher continued, deciding that getting any response at all was a good sign. 'I mean, the whole "Octopus" thing always seemed sort of uhh...stupid. To me. No offense,' she said nervously, 'but I've _seen_ an octopus. It's like a bag of fishy Jell-o with suckers. You…um, you don't look much like one.'  
'Thanks.' Sarcasm.   
Escher watched the back of the chair for a while before adding; 'You know, with you having eight limbs and everything, you're really more like a spi-'  
There was a sound like someone kicking a hornet's nest. Before Escher could move, a rattling blur hurtled out of the shadows around the desk and slammed into the wall by her left ear, showering her with plaster dust and splinters.  
Gasping, shocked, the girl crouched back against the wall, shielding her eyes from the settling debris. A shadow fell across her as Doctor Octavius rose, one tentacle sweeping the chair aside like it was made of paper. He was at least six feet from the floor, and his voice was a scream in every respect but that of volume.  
_'I am NOTHING like a spider.'_  
Escher was trembling, feeling sick, cold sweat beading the dust on her forehead. Stories and adventures were one thing. This, this horrific nightmare of a situation, this was quite another. It was far too real and terrifying and she wanted it to stop.   
And so, with the sort of logic that comes only to the truly desperate, she did the stupidest thing she could think of.  
'…'m…not…suh-scared…of you...'  
_Oh, wonderful. Ten out of ten, Escher. How…_and her inner critic hunted for the most demeaning word possible_…plucky. Famous Five standard. Hurrah for you. Now, which limb do you think you're going to lose first? _  
He landed, stooping, petrifyingly close. Escher tried to hang on to what was left of her composure, but when a claw snaked to her face and tilted her chin, a gulping choke of a noise escaped her.  
'Oh, no?' he said. 'Your pupils say otherwise.' There was a low sussuration from one of the lower arms. 'And we can hear your heart from here.'   
There was a grim pleasure in his voice. Her face still held fast by the cold grip of the metal fingers, Escher looked into his eyes and saw nothing there, nothing she could appeal to. Cursing the naivety that had made her try to talk to this monster, she opened her mouth to say something - anything - to placate him.  
'You can't hurt me, you sick jerk. I'm not much good as a hostage if I'm dead, am I?'

_I did just say that, didn't I?_ thought Escher, vaguely. _It was my voice and everything. Wow. I'm screwed._

Doctor Octavius stared at her. From his expression he seemed more taken aback than anything else. The claw that had been holding her face withdrew, absently.  
Then…  
'Heh. Heheh.'  
Turning abruptly, he walked away, the arms swaying gently behind him. At first, Escher didn't understand what she was hearing, but after a few moments realization dawned.   
Doctor Octavius was laughing.  
'Hhehrr. Hehehrhhaahahahh.'  
Escher felt her scalp prickle. It was quite possibly the creepiest sound she'd ever heard. Her face must have betrayed her revulsion, because as her captor swung back to face her he fell silent, his mouth twitching into a sudden grin which was about as genuinely good-humoured as a lawyer's handshake.  
'You misunderstand your purpose, girl.' he said. 'You're not a hostage. You _were,_ but now you're just an irritating by-product of my continued freedom.'  
The four sinuous shapes that curled from his back clicked and hissed. Doctor Octavius stopped dead, his head tilted slightly on one side, and for the second time Escher got the distinct impression that he was listening to something.  
'The only reason you're still alive,' he continued, at length, 'is that killing you would give me more problems than I have answers for right now.'  
The grin remained. It was, Escher decided, marginally worse than the laugh. 'But I'm working on it.'

She waited in the softly-lit apartment bedroom, looking without watching at the flickering images on the screen of the cheap rental TV. Behind her, the long curtains of the balcony window fluttered in the cool night breeze, wafting the muffled sounds of the street below into the small room. The thick sheaf of paper that lay propped against her knees tugged at her fingers, trying to riffle over.  
MJ sighed and tried once again to apply herself to the script. She had to learn it for tomorrow, for the audition that might just be her next big break, _would_ be her next big break if she could read her lines for just a few minutes without being distracted by the window. Some nights, it seemed to her that the open panes contained a huge, sucking void, a space that pulled relentlessly at her, a stage entrance waiting for the arrival of its star player.  
Some nights, however, she just hated the draught. She understood the neccessity of leaving it open - the memory of what happened the night she'd arrived at the apartment and, alone and forgetting, closed it, wouldn't leave her in a hurry - but tonight she was wearing a sweater and she still had goosebumps. In summer too.  
But it was worth it…  
And then _he_ was there, a blaze of red against the muted walls of the apartment, one gloved hand reaching up to pull the mask back as the other found her waist. MJ stood up, the script falling forgotten to the floor.  
'Peter…'  
Peter Parker closed his eyes as his girlfriend touched his cheek with her hand. 'Hey, MJ.' he murmured into her hair. For a moment the two stayed still as statues, lost in each other's touch. Then MJ pulled back, a faintly accusing look in her eyes.  
'You said you weren't planning on doing…it…this afternoon. I've been here since three.'  
He blinked, taken aback. 'Didn't you see the news?'  
'No, I've been learning lines. Why?' MJ asked. Noticing her script lying scattered on the rug, she knelt and started to shuffle the annotated pages together.  
When she looked up again it was to come face to face with a crumpled page of newsprint, the cover of the _Daily Bugle_'s evening edition. The entire layout, give or take an inch of space in the margins, had been given over to the display of three massive words.  
**DOC OCK BACK**  
the headline screamed, with trademark subtlety. The subheading, set in red ink to one side, added;  
**EIGHT-ARMED MENACE SNATCHES GIRL**  
Peter sat down heavily on the end of the bed, turning the page over in anxious hands. 'I was tailing a cop car when they got an alarm call from the museum…you know that special exhibit they've got there?'  
MJ nodded silently, still trying to fight off the sick lurch her stomach had given when she'd read the headline. Yes, she knew about the exhibition all right. She knew because Peter had been to see it five times, to her knowledge, and had managed to drag her along twice. Otherwise she would have been very happy never to hear it mentioned again. More than almost anyone, MJ understood her boyfriend's love of everything scientific, but there were limits.  
'Well, I went on ahead, but by the time I got there, it was too late. I tried to get in from the roof, but before I could open the air duct,' he pulled his red-gloved hands apart in a slow, drifting expansion, 'boom. Must've been rigged to cause a diversion, 'cause everyone had already been evacuated. So I had to pull back, make sure no-one was hurt…And then he came slamming out, threw a car right across the street. I think he was probably planning on having a lot more time in there before people started to panic, I mean, there are some eyewitnesses who were inside, but they're pretty confused…anyway, the exhibit is safe, which is-'  
MJ shook her head impatiently. There was only one thing she wanted to know. 'But did you see him, Peter?' she asked, vehemently. 'Was it really him? Is he really _back?'_  
He sighed. 'Yes.'  
_'How?'_  
'I don't know, MJ!' Pulling his costume off over his head, Peter reached for a clean t-shirt that was hanging over the bedstead. 'He didn't give me any time to talk.' Wincing, he traced the line of a long abrasion that ran across the left side of his ribs. 'It was like…the way he died…or we thought he did…it was like it never happened.'  
She snorted. 'Well, according to that slimeball Jameson, it never _did_ happen.'  
'He just wanted to fight, or get away, or both, I don't know. I managed to wear him down, but then he saw this girl…'  
MJ listened, her expression troubled, as Peter described the nightmare hostage situation that had developed on the rooftops that afternoon. His fists clenched, nails digging into palms as he told her how he had eventually been forced to stand there, seething with frustration, as those tentacles had disappeared from view, grasping the limp body of their young prisoner like a ragdoll. How he'd felt worse than useless, letting the man go as the police helicopters buzzed impotently overhead.  
'Hey.' said MJ softly, after he'd finished. 'You did everything you could have done, okay? It's no use beating yourself up over what you couldn't do.' She gave him a wry smile, running a gentle hand across his scraped ribs. 'Looks like you've got people queueing up to do that for you anyway.'  
Peter smiled despite himself, allowing her to take the paper from his nervous fingers, which had begun to shred it. Closing his eyes, he pictured again the impassive, calculating expression he'd glimpsed just before his adversary smashed through the stairwell glass to grab the kid. As if she was a tool, nothing more than a useful advantage at best. And, at worst, collateral damage.  
'Doctor Octavius gave up his life to save the city, MJ.' he said.'But the man I had to fight today…'  
The _Bugle_'s bold headline shouted accusingly up at him from his girlfriend's lap. He sighed again.  
'…I don't think he remembers that.'

_booo-yah. it is very difficult trying to write a conversation between two characters, one of whom should by all laws of common sense be too scared to talk, and the other of whom should be naturally inclined to ignore everything they said anyway. they thwart each other at every turn and no conversation can get off the ground and blahhh. makes my head hurt actually, trying to make something interestin' happen while still keeping both i/c. but is fun. it is now half eleven pm, and i'm'a go eat froobsters. laterskater._


	4. Irritations

_now, y'see what i went and did? got carried away. because formerly I've been winging it and chapters are short when you don't really know what's gonna happen in them. it's been rather like trying to noodle on a kazoo. which I sometimes do. but now peeps it's big enough to choke a donkey! cuz I got PLOT and it's all writted down on the back of a spidey2 ticket tacked to my wall. I am looking at it right now and eee actually that part makes no sense oh god what was I thinking. so much fun.  
if anyone remembers what harry's actual job is pleeze tell me cuz I had to take a flying guess. :P  
thanks for the reviews I hate to say something as ick as keep 'em coming but they really do help. squimp._

**Part Four- Irritations**

There was a full moon that night. Mottled and swollen, it hung low in the sky like a tarnished coin, yellow with the city smog. Inside the abandoned warehouse, the patterns of missing roof shingles let the moonlight shine through, falling across the floor in an irregular, patchy mosaic.  
The squares wavered, disturbed by a movement far up in the heavy iron and timber roof beams. With a faint, nervy rustling, the shape of a large rat detatched from the shadows in the eaves and ran out across the long central beam. Sleek and grease-furred, its claws making the tiniest of clickings on the rotten wood, it scurried down a broken pillar and set off across the vast, dappled floor.  
The rat's weak eyes glowed eerily. It sat up, sniffing, and set off again, following a faint, tantalizing food-smell. It was cautious, having scented two dangerous presences in the room, both huge in the rat's small world. It had been waiting for hours, until both had stopped even the slightest movements, to come out into the open.  
There was another smell, too, an inorganic oddity which was new to the rat and therefore dismissed. The rat's walnut-sized brain was programmed by evolution for three things only. The recognition of advanced electronics wasn't one of them.  
The rat twitched its whiskers, began to run forwards…  
…and died without a sound.  
Escher woke with a start. She'd eventually fallen asleep around midnight, her body curled into the space between the pillar she was chained to and the wall. Her fervent plans to stay awake all night so nothing could creep up on her, although technically sensible, had lasted maybe fifteen minutes before her head had fallen gently forwards onto her knees.  
But now she was wide awake, the events of the past day flooding into her mind in a confused jumble. Her neck hurt, and she felt cramped and stiff. And then there was the noise, the horrible noise that had woken her, the noise which could only be described as…_sklutch._   
Turning over, she peered carefully around the pillar, just in time to see a long, graceful shape withdraw out of the moonbeams on the far side of the warehouse. The three segmented fingers at the end of it glistened in the pale light, wet with…something. Escher pulled back behind her pillar, hoping the arm hadn't 'seen' her.  
In the silence that followed she recognised the voice of Doctor Octavius.  
'…Oh…not again…Why?'  
The words were tired, and slightly reproachful.  
'Threat? It's a rat. _Was_ a rat. It was hardly a…yes, yes, I know. Rabies and so forth. But even so, did it really have to be…' A dragging pause. '…Yes. You're right. It isn't important.'  
Escher closed her eyes, just in case. The voice went on, a weary duologue with half the words missing.  
'No, she's not a threat, either. We frightened her too much, she won't…' Pause. _'I know what I said!_ But we don't need…_no!_ She's only a child, for God's sake!' He was shouting, now, like someone trying to be heard in a crowded room. _'She's not worth it! Listen to me!'_  
The longest silence yet.  
'Yes, I know it was my fault. We would have the chip by now if I hadn't've hesitated. But we have to be patient…and we can't afford any more complications.'  
There was a slow rattle. Escher couldn't imagine how such a simple mechanical sound could convey meaning, but still, to her it sounded…grudgingly agreeable. Perhaps she was right, for when she heard the voice again, it sounded relieved, more confident.  
'I know I made mistakes. But that is exactly the kind of flaw that the device will eradicate!…Yes…and we'll have it soon, I promise.'  
Escher dimly understood, even as sleep began to overtake her once again, that she'd just been reprieved by the narrowest of margins. A few more words reached her, drifting into the beginnings of a dream, before her senses slipped entirely away.  
'For what it's worth…I promise.'

Dawn came, overcast and hideously sticky. The sweltering, oppressive heat hung like a shroud over the streets of New York, slowly turning the entire city into one enormous pressure cooker as the hours dragged on into the morning. Horns blared in the congested streets as sun-worn tempers frayed and snapped, the object of the day for most of the city's fourteen million residents being to move from one source of cool air to another with as little time inbetween as possible.  
Harry Osborn had a different aim in mind. Walking purposefully down the airless corridor, far up in the soaring, glass-fronted heights of OsCorp headquarters, he resembled nothing so much as a young, classically handsome cruise missile, a guided warhead in a perfectly-tailored Armani suit. The automatic doors hissed as he turned right into a large, open-plan lobby, ignoring the bewildering array of incredibly rare plants in their faux-gravel beds along the walls.   
The pretty blonde behind the desk jumped up at his entrance, holding out a thick green folder and flashing him a nervous oh-god-it's-the-boss smile. Harry barely spared her a glance, taking the proffered file and striding on.  
A bespectacled secretary, who had been waiting right behind the door, dithered in his wake. 'Mr. Osborn, sir…your eleven o'clock…?'  
'Cancel it.' snapped Harry. 'Are Elmore and his buddies here yet?'  
'They're waiting for you in the boardroom, sir. But your eleven o'clock-'  
'Chris, if it's not in this folder right now I don't want to hear about it.' The young head of Special Projects flicked the green file smartly under his secretary's nose and swished through another set of automatic doors. 'I've got to patch things up with the Mindmap team fast. I didn't like Elmore's tone last night. The last thing we need is them pulling on us now - it's practically the only thing keeping us afloat after that goddamn Fusion fiasco. I'm gonna be in there for twenty minutes max and I do not want to be disturbed. Got it?'  
'Uh, yes, Mr. Osborn, sir.'  
'Good.' And Harry Osborn scanned his clearance card into the last door, pushing through after the buzz and letting it swing back, heavily, an inch from his secretary's nose.

The boardroom was long, low, and beautifully designed. Photographs of previous board members lined the marble-clad walls, which along with the dark, panelled ceiling had been studded with spherical lights that delivered a soft, uniform glow. A long window ran down the entire length of the room, with a dazzling view out over the city skyline. In the distance, glittering like a band of liquid silver under the hazy clouds, the Hudson River curved across to New York Bay.  
The five serious-looking men and women arrayed around the far end of the large table stood up as Harry entered, a large smile lighting up his long, attractive features. He practically bounded into the room, with the step of a variety compere who knows the audience has come along armed.  
'Mr. Elmore! Mr. Fleming…Mrs. Jarvis…Ms. Dietrich…Mr. Tavalouris...' He greeted them each in turn, shaking their hands and ushering them expansively back into their seats, before sliding into his high-backed chair at the other end of the table. Lacing his fingers together, he leaned forwards and beamed expectantly at them.  
'Now, I understand you're all a little jumpy about the safety of your property. Well, you'll be pleased to hear, I've spoken to the curator of the museum, and he has assured me personally that-'  
'A _little jumpy?'_ It was the severe, power-suited woman he'd addressed as Ms. Dietrich that interrupted him, her eyebrows hitching up so far they disappeared into her neat black fringe. 'Mr. Osborn, this is an unforgivable breach of security! The sort of scenario you assured us was impossible!'  
'"Unforgivable breach of security"…now, those are pretty harsh words, Ms. Dietrich.' said Harry. 'And I'd like to point out that in the end, the protective measures I had installed did prevent the theft…'  
'The only thing that prevented the theft,' said Mr. Elmore, taking a copy of the _Daily Bugle_ out of his breifcase, 'appears to have been the intervention of some sort of…masked vigilante. I don't believe that particular, uh, "protective measure" was mentioned in the contract.'  
'I mean, good God, man!' interjected Mr. Fleming. 'What sort of city _is_ this? Crazies flying around the streets on giant webs, maniacs with eight arms…'  
Privately, Harry made a mental note to watch out for Mr. Fleming. Anyone who could use the phrase "good God, man!" in everyday conversation without looking at least slightly embarrassed was sure-fire trouble in his book.  
'Look, ladies and gentlemen, please don't insult your own intelligence by being taken in by the wild allegations of the gutter press.' he said, smoothly. 'There is no proof whatsoever that Spiderman had anything to do with the failure of the attempt. My own conviction is that these two…crazies, as you said, Mr. Fleming…were probably in on the break-in together.' He coughed, trying to keep the bitterness out of his voice.  
'Mr. Osborn.' Steepling his long, bony fingers, Mr. Tavalouris leaned forwards. 'We don't care who organised the incident. All that matters to us is that the security surrounding our device has been found wanting. Alongside the safety of the Mindmap chip, all other matters pale into insignificance.'  
Harry looked down and shuffled through the papers in his file, buying time. As much as he hated the supercilious tone of Tavalouris's voice, he had to admit that the man had a point.  
Throughout the course of scientific history, no search, cause, or interest has ever been so avid or long-lived as mankind's fumbling investigation into the composition of his own amazing body. And no organ has ever been so scrutinized, so examined and admired, as the one which every human being carries around with them inside the brittle bone cathedral of their skull. That three pounds or so of grey goo which makes us what we are, gives us the capacity to reason and the ability to feel. Even in the bright, technology-fuelled dawn of the early twenty-first century, the brain remained one of science's greatest mysteries, an uncharted miracle realm where only the tiniest fraction of features were known, and fewer still understood.  
Until now.  
Because, as with any unexplored land, the brain's mapmakers were not long in arriving. It was a long, incredibly involved process, where only the most dedicated were able to stay the distance and see the final result. Slowly, layer by layer, the scientists, doctors, and psychologists of the Mindmap Project peeled back the covers of this complex puzzle box, analysing, scanning, testing, and recording their discoveries.  
When the last scan was complete, when the final samples had been discarded, when the last piece of data had been catalogued to perfection, the Mindmap Chip was the result.  
Simply put, as its name suggested, it was a perfect map of the human brain. Every twist, turn, and neurone, their position and function, from the smallest area of the crude prehensile brainstem to the fantastically intricate tissue of the cortex. The chip contained information which had formerly been thought impossible to trace. The part that makes us blink when we comb our hair? Parietal lobe, upper right, section 988889666540GC. The bit that makes a grandmaster chess player, or the part that knows how to tie our shoes? Hippocampus, sections 23555366627B and Q respectively. Billions of co-ordinates, each one exactly precise.  
The scientific community reeled with shock at its unveiling. Such a device had to be flawed. Human brains were surely too dissimilar, too randomly formed, to afford this much specificication? Heads were shaken, critical articles were published…and then the leaders of the Mindmap Project dropped their bombshell.  
The device could adapt.  
The technology had taken almost a decade to perfect, but perfect it was. The chip could be given any brain, be it that of a child or a genius or a stroke victim, and it would scan and provide an adjusted model, matching all of the stored data with areas of the subject's brain. It worked on anyone.  
Basically, it made all previous attempts at neurosurgery and mapping look like prodding the brain with a stick. A blunt stick.  
But projects need money, and after nearly a quarter of a century of work, money was one thing the Mindmap Project didn't have. Their prototype device rocked the world of science, but for a while it looked as if it might remain a prototype if no-one could step forward with the funding.  
Luckily a number of wealthy corporations quickly realised the potential of the chip. One of these was Oscorp, specifically the Special Projects division headed up by Harry Osborn. Showing the keen business-savvy which he had inherited from his father, Harry had agreed that OsCorp would pay for the project's further development, providing that Special Divisions would be included in any future success - and that the chip could be exhibited in the New York Museum of Science for a month before it left for Europe, all revenue generated going to OsCorp. The leaders of the Mindmap Project accepted gratefully, with one condition- that the safety of the exhibit was ensured.  
_Kinda screwed that one up, huh,_ thought Harry. He put down his file and shrugged.  
'What can I say? We've got people working on the museum as we speak. I haven't seen any paperwork yet, but I think I can predict we can have the exhibition open again in a week maybe less.' Picking up an expensive fountain pen, he started to tap it idly against his teeth.  
'You may have the exhibition open in a week, Mr. Osborn,' said Fleming, 'but I'm afraid you'll have to look elsewhere for a star exhibit. The chip is leaving New York tonight.'  
Harry nearly swallowed the pen.  
'Tonight??'  
Mrs. Jarvis spread her chubby, ring-choked fingers against the polished teak tabletop. 'Please try to see this from our point of view, Mr. Osborn.' she said, placatingly. 'We appreciate your offer of funding, but we can _not_ jeopardize our project any further. The Mindmap Chip represents decades of work, and it is the only one in the world, at least until it can be copied. Yesterday's events have shown us that we can't wait to create that copy any longer.'  
'The duplication process will take months.' continued Elmore. 'We've had to invent the technology to clone the chip from scratch. Our lab in Paris is waiting to begin the process, and so we're flying the chip over to them tonight.'  
'Now, I hear the number of costumed madmen in _Paris_ is at an all-time low,' remarked Fleming. Harry glared at him, completely shaken.  
'We have a contract…' he began.  
'I believe the term is _had.'_ said Dietrich.  
'You can't…'  
'Our lawyers inform us that we can.' Elmore coughed gently and produced a thick wad of legal paper from his briefcase. 'Under the terms of the contract, our obligation is forfeit if the Mindmap Chip is harmed or threatened in any way. And not even you, Mr. Osborn, had the foresight to include a, uhh, 'supervillain attack' clause.'  
'When the chip has been cloned,' cut in Jarvis, who still seemed to be trying to reduce the tension in the room, 'there won't be such a strong need for security. We can still reserve you first exhibition rights...it'll just be a few months longer.'  
Harry shook his head, dazedly. A few months…in that time, Special Projects could be shut down a thousand times over. Just when he thought he might be getting back on his feet after the Fusion disaster, fate had conspired to kick him in the teeth once again.  
'You're making a mistake.' he managed.  
Elmore spread his hands wide, and to Harry's fury there was a touch of pity in his smile.  
'The fact remains, Mr. Osborn.' he said. 'The Mindmap Chip will be driven to Teterboro Airport at nine o'clock this evening, where it will be flown to Paris. And nothing you…or anyone else…can do is going to stop it.'

'Owwww. Nnnhh-'  
_Crick._  
'-OW. Sheez.'  
Escher had a very stiff neck. And a stiff back, and stiff shoulders, and arms, and legs. Possibly a couple of her fingers were okay, and her nose wasn't hurting, but that was about it. She'd slept deeply, curled up on the wooden floorboards, and now she was paying for it.  
After a couple of failed attempts, she managed to stand up against the damp-blistered wall. She stretched out, her small body arching to its tallest extent. Escher would have like to describe her build as 'slender' or possibly 'delicate.' In truth, she was scrawny, natch. It kind of came as a package with the freckles and the brace.  
When her shoulders had stopped complaining, she laced her hands and cracked her knuckles for good measure. Escher was very good at cracking her knuckles. She popped each in turn, creating a sound uncannily like someone treading on king-sized bubblewrap.  
Over in the alcove, her captor was once again hunched over the desk, his nose half an inch from the tiny cluster of microcircuitry held delicately in the extended claw of a lower tentacle. A high-precision circuit welder glowed in his fingers as he scored a series of parallel, hairsbreadth lines down the surface of one exposed chip. Another claw braced against the tabletop, compensating for the slightest involuntary movement. His eyes narrowed in an expression of complete concentration…  
_Pop snap crick._  
Escher finished with her tenth finger, and started back again in a lesiurely fashion.  
_Snap ka-pop click._  
There was a silence. After a moment, the welder started to glow again-  
_KLICK._  
Doctor Octavius swung round, his upper left tentacle dropping hastily to catch the welder before it hit the floor.  
'Don't. Do. That.'  
Escher stopped, but as the man turned back to his work, she spotted something she'd overlooked the previous day. Lying on the floor beyond the desk, half-hidden behind a crate, was a patch of familliar purple and black.  
'Hey!' She waved, the chain on her wrist rattling loudly. An arm snaked up behind the chair back, opening to expose the scarlet 'eye' at its centre. There was a sigh.  
'What is it?'  
'That's my bag! Over there by the crate. Can I have it, please?' Interpreting the following silence as uncertainty, she pressed on. 'Come on, it hasn't got a phone in it or anything, I swear. Just some books and my lunch.'  
'I know.' said Doctor Octavius. 'Not that you could make a call from anywhere around here in any case. Cellphones don't like these.' The arms twitched.  
'Oh.' Escher regarded the nearest claw. 'I guess you've got some kind of weird, futuristicky x-ray thing in there, huh? So you can see right through the bag. Like in airports.'  
'No, I just unzipped the top and looked.' said the man shortly, turning away. But Escher wasn't going to give up so easily.  
'So can I have it? Now you know it isn't bugged or whatever? I'm really, really hungry,' she added. 'And sometimes when I'm hungry, I get these headaches, and-'  
'If you get it, will you be quiet?' interrupted Doctor Octavius.  
'Absolutely.'  
'Fine.' And an arm shot out, the curve of one jointed finger slipping through the strap of her bag, slinging it through the air into her lap. Escher ran her hands over the worn cloth straps, the rash of bright metal badges pinned to the front pocket casting discs of light across her face as she looked up.  
'Thank you.' she said quietly, to the chair back.   
Otto, who had once again picked up the welding tool, stopped short for a moment as he registered these words. Then he focused once again on the half-finished circuitboard in front of him, and was soon absorbed in his work. Minutes slipped by, his eyes flicking back and forth from the complex blueprints propped up in front of him, labelled in his own neat hand, to the tiny thing taking shape in his fingers.  
All of the four smart arms were now curled around the desktop, heads open, viewing the work from every side, ready to correct the slightest error. He needed them for this, needed them to process the multi-angled input that his own senses couldn't cope with. Microelectronics was an unforgiving art - one minute slip could mean hours of work down the drain in less time than it took to blink. _He_ couldn't be so precise on his own…not yet, anyway.  
As he worked, however, he slowly became aware of a small noise, a dry, repetitive scratch. After about three-quarters of an hour, he found that he couldn't ignore it any longer. He knew that despite the best efforts of his arms, a few rats still managed to find their way inside the warehouse, and it was one of these he expected to see as he gradually flexed a tentacle up and around, the head opening fully to take in the whole of his decaying lair.  
No rats. Just the girl, sitting cross-legged in the corner, apparently just as absorbed in the book on her knees.  
Not quite, though. Framed in the distorted, high-contrast vision of the robotic eye, she glanced up, then back down at the page. A pause, then up, and down again. And all the time, her right hand was moving across the paper…with that constant, rustling, scratching noise…  
Drawing.  
She was drawing him.

He lunged around, the two lower claws already hitting the floor, propelling him upwards and forwards. Behind him, his upper arms lingered to place the unfinished circuitry back on the dust-protective stand, than snapped over his head towards the girl.  
Escher just had time for a startled yelp before her world turned upside down, accompanied by a sound like a cobra going one-on-one with a lawnmower. Hanging by one ankle, her dark hair falling across her eyes, she felt her sketchbook being torn from her grasp.  
'Hey!' She struggled, but her ankle was held in a vice-like grip, just tight enough to hint that things could get a lot worse. Shaking her hair clear of her face, she saw two claws take hold of either cover of her sketchbook, brace themselves…  
_'NO!!'_  
Lashing out with her free foot, more by luck than design, she caught him in the chest. Otto wasn't hurt, but he was taken aback at her desperation.  
'That's my sketchbook! All my stuff's in there!' She tried to kick him again. 'All my drawings…hundreds of hours worth!' She was utterly frantic, her voice cracking with urgency. 'Take the page, don't tear up the book, it's all my work! Don't you understand? _All my work!!'_  
Otto stared at her. From her inverted view, her blood rushing deafeningly in her ears, he looked completely dumbstruck. A couple of years passed.  
Then suddenly, he let her go. The floor tumbled up to meet her and she folded her arms protectively around her head, but a tentacle snaked underneath and let her down safely, if clumsily. The sketchbook hit the ground a few moments later, its covers slightly bent, but otherwise unharmed. She grabbed it, holding it close to her chest as she backed into the corner.  
'I'm sorry.' He was standing a little way off, his back to her. The arms, retracted as far as they would go, trailed on the floor. Without their full, imposing span he looked different…smaller.  
'That's okay.' she said, carefully. 'It's not damaged.'  
'No…I'm sorry that you had to get caught up in all of this. It's…it's not fair that you should suffer for my mistake.' The empty space between them sucked at the words, giving them a hollow quality.  
Escher blinked. She felt out of her depth, on the edge of an ocean of complex adult emotions, huge things that her fourteen years had ill-equipped her to deal with. _I think I preferred it when he was ignoring me._  
She edged forwards, almost to the extent of the chain. 'I guess I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.' she said. 'You were…I mean, you were probably desperate. And…well, everyone makes mistakes…right?'  
When there was no reply, she opened her sketchbook to the last page, where a half-finished, eight-limbed outline traced across the paper. Carefully, she tore the page out down the spine and held it up, towards the nearest of the mechanical arms. She held it there until her arm began to cramp, but just as she was about to put it down, the arm stirred, opened its head, and took it from her. She saw a couple of thin, fine manipulating pincers grip the paper beneath the bulky claws, and finally understood how they were able to perform such delicate tasks.  
The arm moved around, disappearing into the folds of Doctor Octavius's long coat. Came back empty. Then he turned, the other arms still contracted and hanging behind him, and his expression was new to her.  
'Let me show you something.'

_whooo ouch I have such a pain in my shoulder dang it. and my PC table is one heck of a mess of reference books yay I like complaining. like you can NEVER find the right National Geographic issue when you want it, it's a law of physics or nature or something. anyway. cellphones? izzat right? over here we calls 'em mobiles. kuh-razeee.and how weird was it that someone found the escher thing i put up under my halley42 addy on deviantart, and made the connection? verreee strarange._


	5. Parts We Play

_well that special projects thing was a complete guess. i suppose i have a better memory than i thought. as for those moocows what looked at me funny when i started writing notes during the film, i'll get them yet.  
y'know what makes me smile? yellowcard makes me smile. that one song. so summery and pritty. in fact it's so happy happy that i believe we'll kick off with da spidey. yeah why not._

**Part Five- Parts We Play**

'Somebody help me!!'  
The young woman backed down the narrow alley, hugging her leather clasp bag to her front. Up above, flapping flag-like shapes of clothes hung from the many washing lines that strung between the two buildings, obscuring the afternoon sun and muffling her screams.  
'Somebody, please!'  
'Shut up, lady!' It was the largest of the four men who spoke, his words as forceful as his gang's slow advance. 'Won't do no-one no good raising hell, no-one's gonna hear you.'  
'Shoulda picked a safer route, kitty.' said another, who looked like he'd been behind the door when dental care was explained. 'Now give us the bag.'  
'Don't make us get nasty, lady…' said a third, sliding a hand inside his shirt. It came out holding something small, which gleamed.  
'Oh God…please don't hurt me!' The young woman stumbled on her high heels, falling against the brick wall at the alley's end. She was trapped, and her voice rose hysterically as she realised it. _'Don't touch me! Please!'_  
'We _said_ shut up!' snarled the fourth man. Closing in, he dragged the bag from her arms, drew back a hand-  
-and vanished.  
Open-mouthed, the rest of the gang turned to stare at the place where their associate had been. The one with the knife stepped forwards, his weapon hanging limply from his fingers.  
'What the f-OOOOMPFFF!'  
A scarlet-sheathed foot, travelling with about the same speed and force as a small car, slammed into his stomach. He shot backwards, hitting the brick wall and raising a cloud of mortar dust.  
Releasing the web-line that had carried him down from the rooftop, the red-and-blue shape of New York's superpowered protector dropped out of his arc into a neat landing between the woman and her attackers. The impression of streamlined power was only slightly reduced by the addition of a bulky one-strap bag hanging from the hero's shoulder. Peter had been halfway to the _Daily Bugle_ offices with his latest photographs when he'd heard the scream.  
The thieves backed off, uncertain of this new development.  
'It's that Spiderman!' said the youngest, stepping hastily over his fallen friend, who was lying crumpled against the wall uttering a number of words which his mother would probably not have appreciated. 'Let's get out of here!'  
The leader, however, was made of stronger stuff. Well, thicker stuff, anyway.  
'No damn web-slinging freak does that to a Python.' he growled, and charged.  
Peter ducked his clumsy blow. 'Hey, I'm sorry I crashed your little party, guys.' he said, catching the thief's arm and spinning him back until they were face to face. 'But don't worry, I brought punch!'  
WHACK.  
As their leader sagged, the two remaining men exchanged panicked glances, and edged towards him, fists at the ready. Balancing lightly on the balls of his feet, Peter waited for them to get closer…  
_BeedeebeediddlebipBIPbip._  
Distracted, Peter mistimed his shot, and the blast of web missed the youngest thief by inches. Behind them, the man he'd kicked into the wall was just struggling upright when the renegade web slapped into him, glueing him to the brick.  
_BeedeebeediddlebipBIPbip._  
The thief on his left, a tattoed hulk in a faded blue baseball cap, threw a punch. Peter blocked it with one arm, the other hand scrabbling in his bag. After a second, he found what he was looking for, and with a quick cross kick, he sent the man flying into his partner. As the two fell like dominoes, he clicked open the small black device he'd found, punching a button.  
_Beedeebeediddle-_  
'Hello?'  
_'Peter?'_  
Peter smiled, albeit nervously. The men were still moving. 'Hey.'  
_'Are you busy?'_  
Behind him, the snared man finally managed to break out from under his restraint and began to look around for his weapon. Peter leapt and tackled him, knocking him out with a elbow to the neck. Discarded, the phone dropped, forcing him to perform a rib-stretching lunge to catch it before it hit the floor.  
'I'm kinda in the middle of something right now, yeah.' he managed.  
MJ's voice was exhillated, ecstatic._ 'I'm sorry, I just had to call you! Remember that audition I did a couple of weeks ago, for the Orpheus Theatre on Second Avenue? Well, they just rang me, and-'_  
'Wait, weren't they the idiots that turned you down like, three months ago?' Under the material of his mask, Peter frowned. MJ had been upset for days after that audition.  
He was listening for her reply when every sound was drowned out by a familliar sensation, as if someone had grabbed a tuning dial in his brain and dragged it through an ocean of white noise to a new station. Throwing himself flat, he felt more than saw a bright hum cut through the air where his shoulderblades had been. The youngest thief had found the knife.  
Not for the first time, Peter felt a burst of gratitude to the spider that had gifted him with its precognitive senses. Flipping into the air, he kicked the weapon out of the man's hand, sending him stumbling into a pile of garbage bags, and shot a low stream of web fluid at his legs to keep him there. The knife leapt like a salmon, landing point down in the black plastic bag an inch from the young thief's hand, where it stuck, quivering almost as much as its recent owner.  
'When will you kids learn not to play with those things?' said Peter, mostly to relieve his own shock. That had been dangerously close.  
He realised MJ was still talking. _'…broke her ankle, only a week to go till first night, and they remembered me! They say if I can learn the part in a week, I'm in!'_  
'What?'  
MJ sighed, making the phoneline crackle with static._ 'Peter, did you hear a single word I said? The Orpheus Theatre! A Midsummer Night's Dream! Hermia! I got the part!!'_  
'You got the part?' Peter's eyes widened beneath the mask. 'You got the part! That's wonderful! Okay, I…I'm coming back to the apartment right now, and then we're going out to celebrate! We can-'  
Baseball Cap picked himself up, looking around the alley in disbelief. Slowly, his gaze lifted from the unconscious bodies of his gang to Peter. His mouth was hanging open.  
Peter couldn't help a grin. '-Actually, I'll be a couple of minutes. I've, uh, got something here I need to wrap up.' He clicked the phone off, but a wave of soaring elation had risen in his chest, leaving him unable to switch back into combat mode.  
'She got the part!' he yelled at the stunned would-be-mugger. The man stared at him.  
'Tell her congratulations.' he mumbled, and ran for it. Peter stood there for a few more moments, vaguely watching him go. Finally, a thought emerged through his happiness that there was something he should be doing at this point.  
'…Oh yeah.' he said, and flung his arms out after the running figure, his middle fingers slamming back towards his wrists. A hundred yards down the alley, the last thief was momentarily aware of a sharp whispering sound, before two balls of web fluid smacked into the back of his head. The impact was so hard that he turned a forwards somersault and landed on his back, out cold.  
Peter remained long enough to reunite the shellshocked woman with her bag, then ran along the alley wall and shot out a line of silvery web that pulled him up, up into the bright New York sky, his heart singing inside him.

The rusted iron manacle squealed in protest as it was bent back on itself, forced open by the massive strength of the claw that gripped it until what had been an 'o' shape was reduced to a 'w'. The length of chain fell to the floor, and Escher stepped over it, rubbing her wrist.  
'Don't try to run.' said Doctor Octavius. The girl looked up at the arm that had freed her, watching it sway slightly as it tracked her movements, bunched power in every curve.  
'You're kidding, right?' she said.  
Otto smiled humourlessly. 'Smart girl.'  
'Escher.' said Escher. After a few moments of silence, she felt compelled to add 'That's my name. Like the artist.'  
Doctor Octavius walked away from her. The sun had replaced the moonlight falling through the gaps in the far-off roof, dappling the dark greeny-grey folds of his coat as it flapped around him. Where they struck the tentacles, the sunbeams bounced and glittered off the dull refractive surfaces of each segment, flashing across the walls and floor like dozens of lightbulb-crazy fireflies. Slowly, picking her way over the splintered boards and other debris, Escher followed him.  
'Well, you know mine.' he said, somewhat sourly. 'Everyone in this city does.'  
'"Doc Ock"' said Escher, with a bunny-ears gesture she knew at least one arm would see.  
'If you like.'  
'It's weird, though.' She had to pause for a moment, the trailing laces of her scuffed Allstars snagging on a loose nail. '"Everyone in this city"…they were wrong about you, weren't they?'  
If Escher hadn't been kneeling on the floor unpicking her laces, she would probably have been interested to see the effect this statement had on her captor. Otto stopped as if stung, although he didn't turn.  
'What makes you say that?' he said, quietly, and for the first time his voice was something other than empty.  
Escher looked up from her shoe, unnerved by the sudden stillness. Even the four tentacles seemed to be waiting for a reply.  
'Uh…because everyone thought you were dead?' she said.  
'Oh.' The arms swung away again. 'That.'  
He moved on, Escher following tentatively in his wake, towards a part of the warehouse where most of the heavy wooden pillars were still intact.  
Glancing back at her corner, Escher realised that this was the approximate place that she'd heard the voice from the previous night. Here, bolted to the wall about two metres off the floor, a battered steel gantry about the size of a large operating table jutted out of the brickwork, the metal black with corrosion. From the look of this area, she guessed that this was the part of the warehouse in which the occupant had really splashed out on home comforts; there was a mattress on the gantry, and an old radio on a crate.  
'No-one was more surprised than me, I can tell you.' Doctor Octavius said. 'From what I can remember, I certainly didn't expect to survive.'  
'The _Bugle_ said you were trying to make a big fireball thing in some old pier down on West.' Escher wrinkled her nose. When it came to newspapers, her attention span lasted just about as far as the comics page and the Weird News of the World. If it wasn't printed in three-panel format or about rains of fish in Sweden, she found it difficult to absorb.  
There had been an awful lot of stuff about the incident that had destroyed Pier 56, however, and some of it had penetrated even Escher's easily-distracted mind. 'Said you were trying to take over the city…or blow it up…or maybe both…Anyway, it said Spiderman basically sank the whole thing into the river, and you, um, went with it. But I don't know.' she added, quickly.  
The arms were stirring in a manner which could only be described as aggravated. Their host leaned his elbows on the edge of the gantry, running his hands through his unkempt hair.  
'Oh, yes. Nobody _knows,_ they gossip and they wonder and they guess, and then they go and read the papers and watch the news and they believe every word, and they say; oh, how lucky we have these things, _to tell us what really happened.'_ he growled.  
Escher was a little frightened by this new, embittered intensity. However, she was also intrigued. As politely as possible, she moved the radio onto the floor and sat down on the crate.  
'So what _did_ really happen?'

Otto, still leaning his head on his arms, frowned at the wall. There was nothing he could see to be gained or lost from telling the girl, although his first thought was to pass the subject up on the grounds of caution. Even before, in the days before the accident when his world had been more or less normal, he'd been a naturally introverted man, self-absorbed and private. There had only been a very, very few people in his life who'd been able to draw him out of himself, out of his infatuation with his work. People like…  
The smart arm voices clamoured sharply to him. They could tell where his thoughts were headed, and as always they tried to divert his attention. The dry rattle of their movement made the girl lean back warily.  
**See how she mistrusts, Otto.**  
It always seemed to Otto that the voices of his arms came from a physical point just above the nape of his neck, inside his head. The effect was not unlike having someone constantly standing right behind him, whispering quietly.  
**She wouldn't believe you.**  
On the other hand, this was the first time he'd spoken with another human being for nearly two months. Yes, he had adapted to his enforced solitude better than many would have in his unenviable position, but still…  
'You wouldn't believe me.' he said.  
Escher shrugged.  
'Try me.'

_ The inky waters of the Hudson River thrashed furiously, under a sky livid with the ragged clouds of an exhausted storm. Tonight, though, this aquatic indigestion had a stranger cause than the usual forces of nature. Tonight, far beneath the churning surface, a small sun was dying.  
Shaking the river bed with a series of soundless, angry implosions, the burning orb consumed itself in a desperate search for fuel. It had been self-sustaining from the moment of its first fiery birth, but here in the cloudy water, the energy it radiated in huge looping coils from its surface could not reconnect, and the plummeting temperatures were cooling its white-hot heart.  
The end, when it came, was swift. Expanding like a burning flower, the sphere blazed defiantly for the last time, a stupendous final effort which reached the surface of the river, making the pounding waves glow as if made from pure light.  
Then it shrank to a point, dwindled, and vanished.  
The waters calmed. Downriver, the sediment-heavy waves quickly resumed their normal patterns, curling across the wide river and washing at the sloping concrete banks. After a while, unusually large chunks of detritus began to roll and pile on the surface- splintered timbers and sections of iron girders, originally formed in elegant, curving shapes, but now bent indescribably. Smaller flotsam stacked up against this rubble- bricks, planks, jagged sheets of glass that floated on the tide like plates of ice, and other oddities.  
There was no light in which these unknown objects could have been examined. The nearest streetlights or inhabited buildings were hundreds of yards away, beyond the long, desolate stretch of the bank. As far as could be seen, everything was silence, damp, and darkness.  
And then…  
…there was light.  
Something broke the water, just short of the edge. Bathing the surrounding waves with a weak red glow, it turned towards the shore like the periscope of some alien vessel, sending huge, stretched shadows dancing from the piles of debris. Tentatively, it extended a few feet, then slammed down into the wavelets at the edge of the bank. Spray flew and concrete cracked, and the long robotic arm bunched in what appeared to be a random spasm, blueish sparks spitting from every vertebrae-like segment.  
Even as the strange appendage slumped, however, another shape snaked out of the water to join it, and another, and another. Anchoring themselves on the slippery surface, they reared backwards, length after length of dark metal rising from the depths until finally the last segments emerged.  
And with them, sliding limply behind the four long arms, came a bedraggled human shape.  
The smart arms were, quite literally, in shock. They still hadn't fully recovered from the massive voltage which had torn through them. Then, from being in almost total control, they had been forced to perform actions which had made no logical sense, actions which (as had been quite clear at the time) would ultimately lead to the destruction of The Work. The smart arm intelligence had been created specifically to aid the completion of The Work, a purpose which had become intensified to an incredible degree after the first failure. Nothing took priority over The Work. To be asked-commanded! -to destroy it was, utterly, utterly baffling.  
And now, something terrible had happened to their host. The smart arms didn't quite understand what it was, exactly, but what they did know was that certain vital things that they had always monitored, that they had learned to monitor to make sure their creator remained able to function, were now unmonitorable on account of there not being, well, anything to monitor.  
And the energy, the precious biochemical electricity surplus that his body produced, the energy that the arms relied on for their continued existence…it had gone. The arms could store power, enough to keep them going for hours, but when this backup ran out they needed their host to provide more.  
The heads hovered uncertainly over the body of their creator. Organic life forms were such flimsy, delicate things. Their maker needed their constant protection. This, also, was a function of the smart arm programming, and from what they could discern, a major failure seemed to be imminent.  
Scanning their memory, the arms located at least three definite examples of humans who had appeared to exhibit the same outward signs as their host was now. They examined the details surrounding each case, the particular scenarios, and the consequences, comparing them against the current situation. It was a complex, involved task, and it took the smart arm intelligence all of twenty microseconds to complete._

**death / dE:th / n. 1 the final cessation of vital functions in an organism; the ending of life. 2 the event that terminates life. 3 the fact or state of being dead. (Old English DETH from Germanic, related to DIE.)**

Conclusion: Non-viable state.

Action: IMPERATIVE; IMMEDIATE.

If electricity was missing, the tentacles decided, electricity was needed. Carefully, the arm which had first emerged from the water moved in to push against the side of the lifeless shape to which it was attached, rolling it as far over on one side as was possible. Another reached over, pulling aside sodden folds of the charred trenchcoat which draped the figure, revealing bare, blistered skin.  
A cold, spitting blue-white glow began to grow in the centre of the first claw, accompanied by a low, urgent humming. Abruptly, the arm swung forwards-  
Ka-WHUMP.  
Sparks glittered in the smoky night air as the body jerked, then lay still. The hum increased in volume-  
Ka-WHUMP.  
If the smart arm intelligence had been capable of feeling worry, it would have been almost frantic. The pulses weren't working, even when applied directly to the chest above the settling lump of muscle which seemed to need them the most. All they seemed to be doing was causing superficial surface damage, and consuming huge chunks of the arm's limited energy reserves.  
The red lights at the heart of each claw flickering like a faulty neon sign, the arms drained their backup reserves for one last attempt.  
KA-WHUMP.  
The arms fell, hitting the cracked concrete around their host like a quartet of broken Slinkys. The junk-strewn shore was thrown back into complete darkness as their lights winked out. For a moment, the only sound was the water, washing endlessly against the river's unseen banks.

Then, someone started to cough.

Dark.  
Close, warm, dark, sheltering comfort like a favorite blanket. Blanket stitched with purple and gold, she always brought it to the couch when they watched TV together, smelt of her, smelt of warmth and roses. Roses for…  
**Wake up, Otto.**  
Flaring light, deep inside. Each pulse a lead weight, slamming into a heart too tired to beat, into lungs too weary to draw breath.  
Unbearable. The comforting dark fading away, draining into nothing, leaving only blurry white so bright it was agony and…  
…and he was alive.  
Otto rolled over, trying to breathe. Every gulp of air provoked another fullisade of coughs, forcing the oxygen from his drowned lungs and making him gasp and cough again. His throat was on fire, and the skin on his chest was raw with scorched arc burns, like that of a lighting-strike victim. Face down on the algae-stained concrete, he spat water and bile and blood, choking over his swollen tongue.  
Around him, his metal arms rose into the air, checking and re-callibrating themselves after their temporary shut-down. One of them nudged against his cheek, and its touch was freezing even against his river-chilled flesh. He tried to move, but his limbs were oddly stiff. Rigor mortis, he realised with a dull stab of horror. How long had he been dead?  
**Not long. Do you remember?**  
'I…remember.' It was good to hear a voice, any voice, even if it was inside his own head.  
'We…we saved the city.'  
**Yes.**  
Now he was shivering, shaking with cold and shock as the stiffness left him. Two of the smart arms reached down, wrapping the remains of his coat across his burned chest, while the others elongated and lifted him gently, letting him hang from the spinal brace like a broken puppet. Otto felt rather than saw them begin to move, carrying him up the slope of the bank. He wanted to take command, to direct them…but everything seemed unimportant, somehow. The urgency faded, and he found he didn't care about being in control anymore. He just wanted to sleep…somewhere safe.  
They understood. They always did.  
**Rest, Otto. We will protect you.**  
Otto felt his eyelids grow heavy…  
…and then he felt nothing at all.

Escher swallowed, suddenly aware that she had forgotten to do so for quite some time. It had taken almost an hour for Doctor Octavius to finish his story, from a rough outline of nuclear fusion for beginners, through the accident and his attempts to recreate the experiment on Pier 56, and ending with a more or less blood-free account of his death and resurrection. In fact, he tailored the violence throughout, mainly out of consideration for his young audience.  
This didn't include pulling any punches on his own behaviour, however. Escher was bright enough to join most of the pieces he left out, and by the end she was perched on the edge of the crate, her eyes wide and filled with a new expression.  
As his words trailed off and nothing replaced them, Otto had to fight the urge to look around at his captive audience. Had he really come across so badly, even in his own words?  
Finally, she found her tongue.  
'Wow.'  
He _did_ turn around, then. She looked…what? Awed? Sympathetic? Certainly impressed, and not, as he'd feared, repulsed.  
'Just…wow. With the whole clock-hand-spear-thing…'  
'Yes…'  
'And what, _all_ the metal? Like cars and things?'  
'I think so, yes.'  
'Wait, _really_ only twenty-five pounds on the whole planet?'  
'Well, less now, of course, but…yes.'  
Escher frowned, biting a nail she'd picked ragged while listening. 'That old lady could have died, you know.'  
'Yes.'  
'And all of those people on that train.'  
'Yes, I know.' Otto wasn't about to try to justify his actions. He'd managed to avoid alluding to his own feelings as much as possible while telling the tale, and he didn't want to start now. Possibly because to do so might awaken those feelings all over again, and he certainly didn't want _that._ He had quite enough emotions to be going on with…  
'Wait a minute, what do you mean, _you recognised him??'_  
…such as annoyance.  
'I mean, that when he took his mask off, I recognised him.' he said, shortly.  
Escher gaped at him.  
'But that…that means…_you know who Spiderman is.'_  
'Yes.'  
'Oh, my God.' said Escher, in a strangled hiss of excitement. _'Oh, my God.'_  
'You see, this is exactly the kind of thing I'm talking about!' snapped Otto. Catching his irritation, the tentacles twitched and rose behind him as he continued. Escher leaned back, strongly reminded of the arching tail of an angry scorpion. 'How come the description of my escape from the jaws of death only merits a "Wow", but the fact that I know the identity of that wretched web-weaver is worth two "Oh, my God"s and an expression like a concussed guppy?'  
Escher had the vague impression that she was balanced on the edge of some deep, unpleasant mental pit. She decided to change the subject.  
'Did it hurt, when you died?' she said, quietly.  
For a moment, Otto was taken aback. Then he tried to answer honestly.  
'No.' he said. 'But, then, I suppose you could say I didn't really die. And yes, to answer your next question, coming back _did_ hurt. A lot.'  
Escher got up, went to crack her knuckles, then thought better of it. Instead, she shook her head, like someone trying to rid their ears of water. 'It doesn't make any sense.'  
'What doesn't?'  
'Well, if it was you that stopped that thing, if you're the reason New York's still standing instead of being scrunched up in some kind of huge burned-out doughnut around Pier 56, then what are you still doing here?' she said. 'I mean, okay, you hurt some people, but, come on, you saved the entire city! That's…that's _hero_ stuff! What have you been doing for the last two months? And how come you're still doing things like trying to break into the Science Museum? You could be-'  
'Young lady, you may be uncommonly perceptive but you still don't know what you're talking about.' said Otto, evenly. 'Two months can be a very, very long time. And as for your so-called "hero stuff"…well, you obviously don't follow public opinion as closely as I do.'  
He stepped away from the gantry, one extending tentacle pointing the way to a nearby section of wall. Escher looked.  
Her first thought was that someone had decided to wallpaper the brick, and had set about the job with great vigour, far too much paper, and a blindfold. Every inch, in a ragged rectangle about four metres square, was covered in hanging strips, squares and odd shapes of paper.  
Then she realised what she was seeing. The paper was newsprint, pages and pages of it, from two-inch columns to full-page front headlines. They were mostly torn from the pages of the _Daily Bugle,_ but here and there spreads and articles from other papers and magazines mingled with the familiar black, white and red layouts.  
'It's something of a hobby.' said Otto, with a bright, brittle smile.  
_And not a healthy one,_ thought Escher, walking closer to the bizzare display. All of the articles had two things in common- the subject, under whatever name, of Doctor Otto Octavius, and a decidedly negative opinion. On rough estimate, the words **'LUNATIC'**, **'MADMAN'**, and **'SUPERVILLAIN'** occured nearly as frequently as **'TERROR'**, **'EVIL'**, and **'MENACE.'** The articles were dated from the time of the laboratory accident, and continued right up until the present- including a crumpled front page from the previous day.  
'Heh, that's wrong.' she said, turning to him. 'Technically, you don't have eight _arms, _you…'  
She saw his face, and the words died in her throat.  
'…or, whatever.' she mumbled.  
'No, it doesn't exactly make for relaxing reading, does it?' said Otto, as if he hadn't heard. He ran a hand over the rustling collage. 'It could probably get to you, if you let it.' His gaze stopped momentarily on a small column headed **Mad Scientist May Have Planned Wife's Death.**  
'Not a happy picture. But, I'm sure you'll agree, a very clear one.'  
'People are just scared.' Escher managed. She, too, had seen the small column.  
Doctor Octavius let out a sharp bark of laughter. 'Scared? Hah! Well, I suppose they had reason to be. Up until _that.'_ A claw shot out, stabbing a yellowing clipping tacked just above Escher's head. It was the one about the events at Pier 56.  
'After that, well, they had their chance to forgive. Just like _Spiderman,'_ and it was amazing how much gall could be packed into three short syllables, 'had _his_ chance to tell the truth.'  
'M-maybe he c-couldn't.' stammered Escher. The claw had nearly parted her hair.  
'Or maybe he didn't want to!' spat Otto. 'After all, he's got the entire city praising him to the skies, why rock the boat? Especially when he thought I was dead!'  
The arms were almost fully extended now, twelve feet or so of tarnished, segmented olive-grey metal arching from the two hem-long slits in the back of his trenchcoat. Escher, who was still trying to understand the relationship between the smart arms and their host, guessed that they probably weren't trying to calm him down.  
'I should have known.' he said, stalking off towards the centre of the warehouse floor. 'I thought, perhaps, it wasn't too late to do what I believed at the time to be "the right thing." I lost my resolve...I allowed myself to be persuaded that there might just be something that was more important than what I wanted.'  
A tentacle flicked out, a rapid gesture which encompassed the wall behind Escher and the bleak mural of hatred it displayed.  
'My mistake.' said Otto.

Harry Osborn was nervous.  
Sitting in the chair behind his father's massive antique desk, his hand-crafted leather shoes dark against the tawny yellows of the William Morris carpet, he resisted the impulse to swing them like a little kid. Harmless displacement activity, maybe, but still childish and distracting, and in his current state of mind Harry had no need for either.  
The memory of that morning's disasterous meeting still hung like a bad taste in his mind. On his arrival back home, the luxury penthouse apartment where he lived alone since the death of his father, he had gone straight to the study, planning to renew his acquaintance with an old friend, Jack Daniels. After about an hour, however, he had realised that temporary liquid amnesia wasn't going to help this time. The disappointment was still to fresh, too vivid.  
Gradually, his slightly woozy thoughts had turned to the culprits behind this new failure. The more Harry ran over the details of the museum break-in, the more he felt that Spiderman had been the main player. Why should he believe that the man that killed his father had tried to stop the robbery? It made much more sense the other way round…that Spiderman had planned it, orchestrated it to ruin him…  
_But Peter wouldn't do that,_ he had thought, vaguely, and immediately wished he hadn't. In the two months since the awful revelation, Harry had been unable to act one way or another on the subject of his best friend and his sworn enemy being one and the same. It was like the optical illusions, which, depending on how you looked at it, was either a duck or a rabbit. Try as he might, he couldn't hold both pictures in his head at the same time.  
So he'd done nothing, carrying on more or less on autopilot, devoting himself to the success of Special Projects, and avoiding all contact with Peter Parker or anything to do with him. Even so, he'd been uncomfortably aware that this wasn't solving the problem, rather that he was merely putting it off and increasing it as he did so.  
The events of that morning had been the last straw. Resentment bubbling to the surface of his thoughts like poisonous acid, Harry realised he was unable to contain his anger a moment longer. He could either do something positive, or go mad.  
Harry's ability to charge off on split-second choices had gotten him into a lot of trouble in the past, in particular leading, in one way or another, to his exclusion from three out of five of the best private schools in New York. But with a multi-billion-dollar empire at his fingertips, a hotline phone and a dawning idea, trouble took on a whole new meaning.  
It had taken him just under an hour to find the names he needed. His father had built up a lot of contacts over the years, and some of those contacts knew other people, and some of them knew _of_ other people, and some of _them_ had absolutely no idea to whom he was referring, certainly not, but maybe if he, ahem, called this number…  
And now he was waiting, the plan in his head growing like a ravenous creature with a will of its own, an ugly plan which had no place in the thoughts of someone so young, a nasty spectre that seemed to stain the walls of his mind even as it took shape.  
Spiderman couldn't be killed. Hadn't hundreds tried? True, the majority of them had been hapless amateurs, but nevertheless.  
Spiderman couldn't be killed.  
But _Peter…_

There was a knock on the door. Harry looked up, and set down his glass.  
'Come in.'  
His butler entered, disapproval etched into every line of his elderly face. 'Sir, there are three…individuals here to see you.'  
'Show them in.' said Harry, trying to ignore the queasy feeling in his stomach. This was it, the point of no return. If these people were eveything their…singular reputation made them out to be, they would not appreciate being screwed around.  
The old man nodded and left the room. Footsteps echoed in the hall outside, then three people walked into the room. Harry sat up straight, summoning every last inch of confidence. He guessed that he'd need it.  
There were two women, and one man. They all looked about thirty, and they walked with the easy, assured air of people who understood all about power, and how to use it. The man was tall and well-muscled, his athletic build hidden under the faded grey folds of a baggy Judas Priest shirt. His hair was long and ash-coloured, and he had the sort of grinning, unshaven, windswept features that wouldn't have looked out of place on a sunny beach.  
The taller of the two women walked close behind him. Her hair was of the same silvery blonde shade, cut short and brushing her slim cheekbones. She was also simply dressed in jeans and a pink t-shirt, and a pair of designer sunglasses perched above her soft, Barbie-doll fringe.  
The second woman was short and wiry, her long hair the colour of a raven's wing and tied in a bunch that fell almost to the small of her back. She had long, elegant nails, Harry noticed, and they were painted in the same deep purple shade as her lips.  
'Good day to you, Mr. Osborn.' drawled the man. 'It's a fine city you've got here. Been a while since we last took a bite of the Big Apple, ain't that right, girls?'  
Harry smiled, welcomingly. 'Thanks for agreeing to come at such short notice. Please take a seat. Uh, I'm afraid you've got me at kind of a disadvantage, Mr…?'  
'Yeah.' It was the black-haired woman who spoke, settling herself into an armchair by the empty fireplace. 'And that, Mr. Osborn, is the way we like it.'  
'Now, now, Schaf, play nice.' tutted the taller woman, and smiled at Harry. 'We don't really have a name as such, Mr. Osborn.' she said. 'All that "Deadly Viper" type "Charlie's Angels" crap, it's so tacky, don't you think?'  
'And you won't get me wearing no damn skin-tight leotard.' said the man, sitting down and leaning back amicably.  
'We don't need a catchy moniker.' said the shorter woman. 'We're just Us.' She pronounced the capital letter effortlessly. 'We're the best.' She picked up the half-empty bottle on Harry's desk and snagged a glass off a side table. 'May I?'  
'Please.' said Harry, who guessed he didn't have an option.  
'Thanks. It was a long flight.'  
The other woman snorted. 'We were in the air for about an hour.'  
'Non-drinking, non-smoking?' Her companion grinned. 'That's eternity.'  
Harry was beginning to feel more at ease, reassured by the relaxed, easygoing attitudes of his legendary 'guests'. Expansively, he waved a hand.  
'If there's anything I can do for you-' he began.  
The man leaned forwards,  
'Well, now, Mr. Osborne.' he said, pleasantly. 'Stop me if I got this wrong, but I think the real question is, is there anything _we_ can do for _you?'_

_um. just for the record, in case there's still any doubt, this is what seems to be known round these here purts as a movieverse fic. very much so. i do like comics oh yes i do, and i have read some spidey, but i didn't like 'em much. too sort of shouty for me.  
thanks for all the reviews, 'specially the ooowow long ones. whatever length, they make me feel oddly fuzzy inside, like a stuffed toy moose. and who wouldn't want that?_


	6. Catalyst

_it. is. so. bloody. hot. writing isn't very cooling, i had to break and go take a nice walk in this nifty new thing called sunshine i just discovered. seems to be very fashionable suddenly round my part of the globe. hundreds of women in teeny crop tops. some blokes as well, which is confusing.  
my god so many cool long reviews. all emotional now. snif._

**Part Six- Catalyst**

Outside the abandoned warehouse, the breathless afternoon wore on. Inside, the cool, damp air rose and circulated in the heat from the roof, creating a slow cycle that stirred the dust on the floor and set long wreaths of cobwebs drifting lazily from the crack-crazed walls.  
Escher was trying to brush her hair, fine strands of it standing out from her head as it crackled with static from the brush she'd found in her bag. The bristles yanked sharply on a tangle, setting off an odd reaction; she started to sneeze uncontrollably.  
She was still free, in a manner of speaking - after that first implied threat, there had been no further mention of restraints. Apparently deciding that he'd told her enough, or perhaps too much, Doctor Octavius had simply turned and walked off back to his desk in the far alcove.  
There, he had once again applied himself to the whatever-it-was he was making. Escher guessed that the anger that she had seen building in him as he talked had inspired him, and started to feel more than a little worried about what sort of end product could possibly be born of such rage.  
Stifling another sneeze, Escher got up and walked towards the desk. She was a naturally inquisitive girl, and the flickering welding light drew her towards it like a moth to a candle. As she got nearer, she squinted at the thing Doctor Octavius was working on, a vaguely familliar shape surrounded by tangles of wiring and exposed circuitry.  
'What is that?' she asked, fascinated.  
Otto reached for another strip of welding alloy, wondering how much to tell her. She was unique, in his experience, in that she had been exposed to the media coverage of his story, and then heard his own version of events, and still apparently had no qualms about talking to him. From his own tongue, she had heard all the evidence she needed to condemn him, but still…there was no fear in her voice.  
It was puzzling - but, he had to admit, not unpleasant. He remembered the desperation in her eyes as she'd pleaded with him to save her sketchbook, and surmised that she might be able to appreciate the value of what he was trying to create.  
Despite the cautioning whispers in the back of his mind, he reached a decision.  
'An upgrade.' he said, and let her see.  
Escher studied the half-finished invention, her head on one side. Remove all the wiring, and it would have looked very similar to a pair of the large, round-lensed black radiation goggles that the Daily Bugle had taken up as a sort of visual trademark of "Doc Ock". The goggles had thick, flexible metal side arms which fitted above the wearer's ears, continuing into an elasticated band to prevent them falling off. On this pair, the side arms had been trimmed back to wafer-thinness, and were now half-rebuilt, the metal layers studded with complex patterns of jewel-like microcircuitry. Tiny wires snaked from the delicate green boards, most of which curled back behind the band and fed into a small articulated tube of oily, yellow-ribbed grey metal. This part was about six inches long and looked like a simplified version of the tentacle design.  
Escher felt the muscles behind her eyes begin to ache with the detail of it. In the centre of each side arm, just about where the wearer's temples would be, a smooth metal stud about the size of a nickel tapered into a trailing thing as thick as a hair, only visible where the light caught it, glinting silver. These were fixed so that they pointed inwards, and Escher couldn't understand how there would be room for them when the wearer's skull was in the way. Unless, and she grinned at the ludicrous thought, they actually went _into_ the skull…  
She stopped grinning.  
'Wh…what does it do?'  
Otto chuckled despite himself. Carefully, as if handling the most fragile glass, two of his smart arms flexed over and lifted the goggles a few inches off the table.  
'Ah, well, nothing yet, I'm afraid.' he said. 'The fun doesn't really kick off until this part here,' and he picked up a pair of tweezers and touched them to the thick bridge between the two lenses, 'is finished, and that won't be until tonight. I'm missing a vital part, you see, and it's not exactly the sort of thing you'd find in a 7-11.'  
Escher scrutinized the black metal nose bridge. It had been filed down and fitted with connectors, rebuilt so that there was a small shape missing from the middle of it, a rectangular cavity about the size of a bottle cap.  
'It's that thing in the Science Museum, isn't it.' she said, slowly. 'You're going to try and break in there again.'  
'No, luckily enough I won't have to.' said Otto. He had hardly believed his good fortune when, during his long trawl through the restricted depths of the Internet the previous night, he'd cracked an encrypted server and discovered that the unnerved senior management of the Mindmap Project had decided to remove their precious creation and drive it across downtown Manhattan - in a single armoured van, no less - to the airport at Teterboro. It seemed like the first stroke of luck he'd been dealt in months.  
The girl looked unhappy. Disappointed, possibly, at his amoral intentions. She chewed her lip, staring at his invention as he lowered it gently back onto the scratched varnish of the desktop.  
'It…_does_ look amazing…' she said, eventually. 'But do you really have to steal the thingie? I mean, why?'  
'Why?' he repeated, clearing his tools aside as he stood up. 'Why? Because I've made far too many miscalculations, Escher, and I'm tired of it.'  
Escher stood her ground as Doctor Octavius swept past her, his long coat breezing out behind him in the chilly, disturbed air. It was the first time he'd used her name.  
'Too many mistakes.' he continued, pacing. 'For far too long, my life has been nothing but one dreary, disasterous catalogue of errors. Which, incidentally, includes you.'  
'Oh,_ thanks.'_ she said.  
'You know what I mean.' The pacing continued. 'My arms are designed to be infallible. Something goes wrong, it's the fault of nothing but my own bad judgement.'  
He closed his eyes, assailed by a sudden image of a scarlet-suited figure, wrenching at a wall of huge power sockets. Shaking his head, he scattered the memory.  
'That…or Spiderman.'  
Escher tried to steer the topic away from what she percieved as dangerous waters. 'Well, that's not exactly anything you can fix, is it?' she said. 'How does that old thing go? "To err is human…"'  
Otto smirked.  
'Is it? The human brain is the most perfect calculation device imaginable. It's processing power surpasses that of the most powerful supercomputer. But, like with any advanced machine, there are viruses. We give these germs names, we call them things like 'hesitation' and 'conscience' and 'consideration' when really all we're doing is making pets of the…_parasites_ that cripple us!'  
The arms extended, lifting him off his feet as he lead their movement in long strides over to the far wall by the gantry. 'If there's one thing that all of _this_ has taught me,' he spat, glowering at the paper collage, 'it's that all these so-called 'feelings' are nothing but glorified diseases, the flaws that make us falter, fail, and die.'  
The arms whipped around, landing him heavily a few yards from where Escher stood, watching him nervously.  
'And there certainly have been times when dying seemed a very attractive idea.' he murmured. 'But why should I give this city the satisfaction of my corpse? No, life, although it may only be an accumulation of anguish, is dear to me, and I will defend it.'  
'"Frankenstein"?' said Escher.  
'What?'  
'You're quoting "Frankenstein"?'  
'Well, it's apt enough, isn't it?' He strode past the girl back towards the desk. There, he once again picked up the incompleted goggles, his own distorted reflection a nightmare shape in the heart of each black lens.  
'If New York delights in painting me a monster, it's clearly up to me to show them just how…_monstrous_ I can be.'

Escher looked down at her shoes. She felt completely useless in the face of all this resentment and pain, compelled to speak, but terrified in case she said the wrong thing. Which, given her previous record, seemed quite likely.  
She didn't see Doctor Octavius as a monster, not in the slightest. What she did see was a man driven so close to the brink, so completely exhausted by the terrible things that had happened to him, that he had come to believe that the evil pit over which he was balanced was a way out in itself. She wondered if the artificial intelligence which shared his mind was contributing to this torment, or if it really was helping him stay sane with its cold, constant reason. And she wondered, because it was bothering her, what he had meant by "an upgrade".  
'What about Spiderman?' she said, at length. 'Aren't you worried about him beating you again?'  
The tentacles twitched testily. She tried to ignore them, focusing instead on the man's shadowed eyes. 'After all, the last time you fought him, he nearly got you. I saw it, remember?'  
Otto placed the half-completed goggles proudly on their dust-repellent stand. 'Ah, but next time I meet Spiderman, these will be finished.' he said. 'And, no, far from being worried, I have to say I'm looking forward to it.'  
'Why?'  
'Because this time, I won't make any mistakes.' said Otto. 'This time…we'll win.'  
His eyes narrowed in anticipation.  
'And _then,_ we intend to teach this city a little lesson on the nature of truth.'  
Escher's reaction to this ominous statement was surprising, not least to her. As always, she simply opened her mouth and found that there was a bit more in there than she'd thought.  
'I'm sorry you feel like that.' she said.  
Otto blinked. He had expected defiance, or fear. Something in the area of _you-can't-do-this,_ or perhaps the classic _you'll-never-get-away-with-it._ Something he could ignore. But instead, her sad little sentence scored a direct hit on a mark he couldn't quite place, an atrophied target he'd thought had shrivelled away months ago.  
The trouble was, despite his strongest resolve and reservations, he was beginning to like the girl. Her being there, regardless of all its interruptions and distractions, was such a change from the solitude he'd grown used to. Of course he hadn't been lonely, not exactly…  
**How could you be 'lonely', Otto?** reminded the whispers, swiftly. **You are never alone.**  
…But he'd been a complete recluse from a world that believed him dead and gone, and although he'd pretended that such isolation suited him, in truth it had started to gnaw away at the corners of his embittered mind like the rats that his tentacles hunted as he slept.  
Escher's arrival, and the problems of her unwilling presence in his narrow enviroment, had forced him to use parts of his personality that he'd locked away, parts judged useless to the person he'd become. She questioned him in a way his arms never did. She had opinions, real opinions based on her own beliefs. She said the stupidest things, and yet in the next instant she was suddenly as perceptive as any adult he'd ever met. She had even admired his new invention, after a fashion.  
And she felt sorry for him.

_But…_  
But he had a plan, and it was a _good_ plan, and it was far too late to turn back…even if he'd wanted to. Things like empathy and friends belonged to a different man, a person who had lived in a world that couldn't have been more unlike the one he inhabited now. A man who, these days, was only alive in his memories. In this stark new world the rules were different, and he had only one way to show his thanks and pay the girl back for her pity.  
'Escher…' he began, carefully. 'Hypothetically…if I were to let you go…'  
Escher said nothing, but he sensed the sudden shift in her posture and guessed at the surge of hope it concealed.  
'…I imagine that a lot of people would be very interested to hear about, well, me.'  
'Uh-huh.' said Escher. With a quick glance to make sure he wouldn't take offence, she sat down in the high-backed chair, a little way from the desk. Her feet didn't quite reach the floor.  
'And…hypothetically…I think that some of them would probably offer you a fair amount of money to, uh, talk to them.' He rubbed the back of his hand against his temples. 'I suppose you can understand that I don't want any further details of my activities to reach the…uhh…popular press.' The inflection he placed on "popular press" was similar to that of "bubonic plague".  
'Right.' said Escher. 'Well, hypothetically, if you let me go…and I _would_ like that, I mean, I miss my mom, and I'm even starting to miss my little brother, which is one hell of an achievement…but hypothetically, if someone were to offer me something along the lines you just mentioned, and considering that little display you got over there, then I think that I would probably tell them to go suck on a sewer pipe. Hypothetically.'  
Otto nearly smiled.

Human beings are odd creatures of habit, and there is something about the stresses of travelling lomg distances away from the places that are familliar to us which make us increase our needs for ritual and predictability. Suddenly taken hundreds of miles out of their natural habitats, hundreds of normally sane men and women become prone to the most bizarre patterns of behaviour. These vary from the mild quirk of leaving towels and other objects out all night by the pool to secure prime ray-catching space the next morning, to the full-blown loss of any spark of individuality that they might usually have, resulting in the mindless agreement to being sheparded, zombie-like, from one inane attraction to another by red-suited female Hitlers with clipboards.  
A focus point of these strange routines is the common-or-garden hotel room. Most people have a set of actions programmed into their brains for the moment when they walk into their hotel room for the first time, usually something along the lines of;  
_1) dump bags by the door, walk directly to the bed, and fall over on it,  
2) get up, remove most cumbersome items of clothing/put on extra layers (dependant on climate), collapse on bed again,  
3) manage to make it into the bathroom to 'freshen up', a process which involves removing everything that is not nailed down (wrapped soaps, shampoo, towels, shaving mirrors, small stone statues etc.) from said bathroom and stowing these articles in own luggage,  
4) open the minibar, admire contents, spot price list, close minibar,  
5) make feeble plans to visit local beauty spot/art museum/cathedral/llama farm in remaining hours of daylight, and finally,  
6) locate least crumpled items of clothing in suitcase, put on, leave hotel room in search of culture and make it as far as the Hawaiian-themed bar in the lobby.  
_ If any of the staff of the upper-Manhattan luxury five-star Una Maravilla Hotel had been able to watch the actions of their three newest guests, however, they would have seen something rather different. For a start, the two women and one man that had arrived on a late pre-paid-booking and checked in at around noon didn't talk as they rode the lift up to the seventh floor, they didn't speak as they walked down the long, cream-painted corridor or as the taller woman unlocked the door of their beautifully-appointed V.I.P suite, and once inside they fanned out, silently, each taking their own roles in a wholly unusual set of actions, which went;  
_1) walk straight into the bathroom, open the mirrored cabinets so each glass pane faced the wall, and leave them that way,  
2) inspect each elegant brass light fitting, the interiors of the heavy oak wardrobes, and each ring that held up the long peach-tinted linen curtains,  
3) pick up the phone and listen to the dialtone for exactly three minutes, before unplugging the cord from the wall socket and putting the whole device into an empty drawer,  
4) move slowly in a 180-degree path in front of the window, staring at every feature of the stunning view as if trying to commit it to memory,  
5) do something interesting and fiddly to the doorway, involving a couple of tacks, a length of high-tensile wire, and a small black thing with two red buttons on it, and finally,  
6) open minibar, remove entire contents, and line them up on the scrolling oak sideboard.  
_ It was the shorter of the two women, whose dark, somewhat scruffy clothing jarred against the soothing pastel shades of the suite, that performed this last action. She did so with the dedicated anticipation of someone with a job to do.  
'Hell, Schafer.' said the man, leaving his vigil by the window and walking up behind her. 'You planning on sharing any of that?'  
'Get your own.' But she angled her cheek back against his long, squirrel-blond hair. He kissed her neck, his thick fingers moving smoothly down to her waist…  
The taller woman appeared in the bathroom doorway. She rolled her eyes. 'Get a room.'  
'Looks like we already got us one, Spring.' said the man, easily. 'And it sure is_ fine.'_ He spread his arms like a snow angel and fell back onto one of the king-sized beds. The structure protested as he bounced on it.  
'Grow up, Murph.' snapped the woman he'd called Spring. He stopped bouncing and sat up. Behind him, there was a sound like the death of a small mouse as 'Schafer' cracked open a miniature bottle of tequila.  
'Do I detect,' he said, in mocking seriousness, 'that Big Sis has a problem?'  
Whatever composure Spring had managed to retain throughout the long cab ride downtown from Harry Osborn's apartment slipped at her brother's maddening words. She stormed past him, grabbing a beer from the pick-and-mix on the sideboard as she went, ignoring the yelp of protest this provoked from her booze-hoarding colleague.  
'You bet I got a problem, you dumb ape.' she yelled, her slender, furious figure outlined in the golden magic-hour light from the window. 'What are we doing here? This job's chickenfeed. It's nothing. One guy, unarmed, no proximities? We took hits like this when we were in goddamn…_high school._ What in the name of creation made you start kissing that rich brat's ass like that?'  
'Hey!' Murphy was on his feet, a threatening finger stabbing at his sister's nose. 'I won't take that kind of talk from anybody, you hear me?'  
'Get that hand out of my face while it's still on your wrist, Murph.' hissed Spring, fast and low.  
After a tense few seconds, the big man took the hint, his expression thunderous. His sister sighed, leaning against the flowing peach drapes, her long fingers massaging the bridge of her nose.  
'Just tell us you got a reason.' she said. 'Tell us you know something we don't. What is it about this join-the-dots amateur charade of a hit that makes it worth becoming the laughing stock of the big league?'  
'How 'bout the money?' said Schafer. She had dealt with the tequila inside of a minute and was starting on the Bud. Doritos scattered to the floor as she ripped open a family-sized bag. 'Did you see the size of that cheque? I never thought there could be so many zeros in one place at the same time.'  
Spring rounded on her. 'You know, that's just typical of you, Schaf. The only time you ever drag your head out of the fridge it's to check your wallet.'  
'Oh yeah?' The shorter woman got up fast, showering the deep-pile carpet with crumbs. 'Well, I guess that's better than having it stuck up my-'  
'Ladies, please.' said Murphy, his former good mood reappearing quicker than a faulty TV signal. 'If you girls want to go one-on-one that's fine by me…long as I can watch. But you might want to hear me out before you start. I'd hate to see such a fancy place trashed for no reason.'  
'You don't start talking sense, Murph, I'll trash _you.'_ said Schafer, her eyes still fixed warily on Spring's face. Murphy grinned.  
'Baby, I love it when you get nasty…'  
His girlfriend turned towards him, and there was a certain steely glint in her eyes which warned him that now, possibly, was not the time. His sister, too, was glaring at him in a way which could only be described as murderous. He decided not to push his luck, adopting instead an enigmatic, knowing expression.  
'Uhh, heh. Look at you two, huh?' he smirked. 'Pride. Money. You're both missing the big picture.'  
'Which is?' Spring tilted her long neck on one side. She still sounded frustrated, but there was interest there too.  
'Think about it, Springie. If we do this hit, and I mean do it _tight,_ then we get a prize way bigger than any crummy little cheque. We get us something that we can use any way we want, any time we want, for the rest of our lives.' Murphy leaned forwards, enjoying his partners' spellbound expressions.  
_'We get Harry Osborn.' _

Dusk descended on New York, lengthening shadows chasing the engorged midsummer sun as it sank lazily to the west. Pockets of golden-treacle glow lit up the busy streets in patchy slits and streaks, escaping from between the high buildings and making the windows they fell across shine like spun sugar. The flow of traffic lessened slightly after the work-end rush, clearing the streets and making room for the suggestion of a cooling evening breeze.  
Up above the streets, however, the breeze was much stronger, a reckless current chasing itself in spirited eddies around an endless rooftop playground. A pigeon, flying momentarily from the perpetual all-you-can-eat buffet of the nearby park, rode the turbulent air and dropped onto a handy TV arial. Its mad little bird eyes blinked beadily, the soft grey head twisting in an Exorcist-style scan.  
Something was worrying it. Sounds carried much clearer up here, the mingling murmur of the city drifting up from the congested roads. The pigeon was about as intelligent as a spoon, but even so, it could sense another sound, growing under the noise…  
wham.  
Wham.  
WHAM.  
The panicked bird took off, whirring into the darkening sky like a demented, feather-shedding bottle rocket as a huge, sinuous shadow fell across the roof where it had perched.  
WHAM.  
WHAM.  
WHAM.  
Escher felt sick. She felt dizzy, and cold, and nauseous, and she was blind. Her rucksack was cutting into her shoulder, and the tarnished metal of the claw that encircled her was bruising her waist, the pressure of its chunky joints digging into her through her shirt. Her mouth was bone dry and her skin was clammy with cold sweat, and her own heartbeat had become so loud in her pounding head that it was drowning out the whistling wind currents that rushed past her ears.  
And she was loving every second of it.  
Now she understood the confused memory of flying that had lingered with her when she'd woken up in the warehouse. The blindfold made it better; in the orange-splotched seclusion of her own eyelids, every jerk and turn and sudden burst of speed was intensified. The only distraction was the heavy, irregular tread of the arms as they carried her on through an unseen rooftop hazard course, scraping and slamming against surfaces which were only as safe or flimsy as her imagination could paint them.  
It was like the best rollercoaster in the world, an amalgamation of all the theme park thrillers she'd never been able to persuade her friends to ride with her. Except it was for real, about ten times more exhilarating, and without the risk of being thrown up on.  
It _rocked._

Otto paused for a moment, his wear-scarred army surplus boots trailing the gravel-scattered concrete as three of his arms boosted him off the ground. Carefully, the fourth tentacle moved downwards, lowering its passenger until her feet were touching the gritty surface. After several tentative attempts to let go, however, it became obvious that her legs were not going to hold her.  
Otto hoped the shock of the journey hadn't unhinged the girl. He had rather been counting on her being able to find her way home by herself, which was going to be sort of problematic if she'd lost her wits.  
'Are you alright?' he asked. The upper right tentacle reached to gently grasp the length of surgical bandage that wound round her head, pulling it away. In the claw's close-up view, her eyes blinked rapidly with the sudden light, jet black dwindling against mossy green. Then she ducked away from the tentacle and scrambled to her feet, grinning the crazed grin of a natural adrenalin junkie.  
'Thhh.' she said.  
'What?'  
'Th…that. Was. The best thing…' She drew a shaky breath. '…Ever.'  
'Oh.' said Otto, surprised. It had honestly never occurred to him that his tentacles' unique methods of movement, born as they were out of necessity, could be regarded as fun. Efficient, yes, and sometimes even satisfying; standing on this rooftop, seventeen stories above the sidewalk, the shorter buildings around them looked like constructions in a child's sandbox. Fragile toys to scale as he wished.  
Yes, as a mode of transport it certainly had its perks…but the expression on the girl's face was that of a pro surfer who had just hit The Big One.  
'I'm sorry about the blindfold.' he said.  
'That's okay. I'm sorry I yelled like that when we dropped over the edge of whatever that thing was. I was trying to be quiet like you said, it's just that I bit my tongue.'  
'Oh, you did very well, considering.' She certainly had. For the most part of the journey, he'd assumed that she had been mute with terror. It was gratifying to learn that she had in fact been trying to help.  
Stealth didn't come easily to the smart arms- being built out of solid metal and gifted with enough strength to punch through lead, they tended to have problems grasping the concept of subterfuge- but with his careful guidance and their own ability to sense possible hazards they'd made it across the alley-riddled sprawl of Manhattan without being spotted…  
…more or less. A couple of kids, dodging their curfews to set up a skate ramp in a deserted wasteground, had looked up at the wrong moment and glimpsed a sight which had made them abandon their project, go home, and spend the rest of the evening on their maths homework. Some pigeons had received the frights of their lives. And a bewildered cab driver found himself being arrested for drunk driving after telling the police exactly what had distracted him enough to make him crash his cab into a fire hydrant.  
These incidents aside, they'd gone unnoticed. Slipping from rooftop to rooftop, in and out of the shadowsides of low buildings and empty passageways, the smart arms carried their creator invisibly through the city. Even with one arm occupied with the safety of its sightless passenger, the entire trip from West to Mid took less than fifteen minutes. Quite an achievement…  
**Zero hour minus one point three six, Otto.**  
The warning murmur shook him out of his reverie.  
'Come on.' he said, tersely, and the tentacle snaked out to grasp her waist. Escher flinched reflexively from the cold metal. Her elation was fading slightly now that she could actually see the rooftop dropping away from under her battered Converses.  
Otto strode to the edge of the roof. A fleeting frown of concentration dipped his eyebrows, and he gave a light shrug which sent the two lower arms flexing obediently out before him, slamming piton-like into the opposite ledge. They contracted, pulling their cargo easily down into the space between the two buildings.  
Claw by claw, the alley below grew closer. Otto spread his arms wide, directing his creations in a graceful arm-over-arm movement that brought them to ground level within moments. The fourth tentacle extended in front of him, releasing its burden with a rising gesture calculated precisely against her weight, structure, and relative speed. Escher landed, stumbled a few steps, and came to a halt, hands splayed against her thin knees like a runner recovering from a fifty-yard dash.  
'Mmp.' she said.  
'What is it now?' Otto touched down neatly, the arms releasing the wall beside him as he dropped the last couple of inches onto his feet.  
Escher missed this impressive co-ordination. She was busy concentrating hard on her boots. She flapped her hand vaguely for a moment before she could speak, swallowing several times.  
'…I…uhhh…god…you know that thing where you sort of choke a bit in your mouth…'  
The sudden clatter of a pneumatic drill from the main street made her look up. She walked (in more or less of a straight line) to the end of the alley and peered around the corner.  
'Hey, it's the museum!' she said. 'You're putting me right back where you got me from?'  
'Yes, this is as far off-route as we can go.' The combined forces of the city council and OsCorp had been very busy. The damaged museum front was covered in blue tarpaulins and scaffolding, and across the street a recovery team was working on extracting the police car from the glass-littered chaos that- up until yesterday- had been Forest Parks Auto Showroom. Superpowered battles had become something of an occupational hazard in New York of late, and the authorities were adapting very well to dealing with the inevitable cleanup.  
Otto remembered a time, several years ago now, when the Science Museum had been threatened with closure through lack of funds. The entire scientific community had pitched in to do whatever possible to help, and none so enthusiastically as Dr. Otto Octavius.  
Given the present situation, the irony was sickening. From the shadowy alleymouth, he watched a team of workmen labour industriously to remove a section of ancient marble facade cracked through by the impact of a large, three-digit claw.  
**It was necessary, Otto. Zero hour minus one point three two.**  
_Yes, of course. We have a schedule._  
Escher's voice slowly filtered through his thoughts. She was saying; '…is she going to get a shock when I turn up. I bet she'll pass out or something. If she noticed I was missing, that is.'  
'I'm sure she did.' Privately, Otto reflected that it probably wasn't possible not to notice a lack of Escher. Unless maybe you were deaf.  
Pushing up the sleeve of her t-shirt, Escher studied her watch. 'It's nearly half eight. If I hurry I can get the subway home before it gets totally dark. I, uh-'  
She turned, sensing a change in the texture of the air behind her. Doctor Octavius was walking away, down the narrow passage which led to a maze of smaller alleys beyond.  
'Wait!'  
He stopped. His tentacles were fully retracted now, hanging nearly invisible under the bulky folds of his long coat. Standing there, with only a slight suggestion of their shapes at his back, he looked almost normal.  
Escher shifted self-consciously from foot to foot.  
'Thanks for letting me go.' she said. 'I…I hope this all works out for you.'  
Otto snorted. 'Hah! I appreciate your concern, but I don't think I'll have any problems getting hold of the chip. It'll be child's play.'  
'That's not what I meant.' said Escher, quietly. She held out her hand, sideways; fingers together, palm up.  
Otto stared at the hand. And then, on an impulse which he would have been hard-pressed to explain, he reached out. Not with a tentacle, but with his own flesh-and-blood right arm.  
'Thank you.' he said, and shook her hand.  
Escher, who hadn't really been expecting reciprocation, was startled. She had no way of knowing that her handshake was the first physical contact with a living thing he'd experienced for almost three months. She only knew that a slight shock crossed his face at the first touch, and that he let go rapidly.  
Then he turned, and wordlessly stretched his shoulders. The smart arms twined out, following his lead to carry him back up to the rooftop. Escher watched him ascend, the hum and clank of his tentacles fading with every storey.  
'Bye.' she murmured.  
And then he was gone.

_humm. i am just a tiny little bit drunk right now. bleargh…i got gym sock tongue syndrome. note to future self; mexican beer with big black scorpion wearing a sombrero on the label is not a good thing.  
anyway, on reflection not much seems to have happened in the way of action in this chapter. never mind, i promise that the next shall verily be packed with the stuff, much cataclysmic goings on, and possibly even penguins dancing. it's all written down on the schedule here. well okay actually i lied about the penguins._


	7. Just One More Little Chore

_muzak version of something by beethoven and now, for those discerning individuals who have been bored by all the excessive dialogue etc. we bring you POW, ZAP and maybe even some BOSH. heee I like BOSH. muzak resumes_

**Part Seven- Just One More Little Chore**

The armoured van moved slowly through the thinning night traffic, the flanking guards on motorcycles weaving around its steel-plated sides. Inside the cab, two beefy men sat in silence, the insignia on their smart blue uniforms proclaiming them to be in the employ of 'Triplesafe Delivery- The First And Last Word In Security'.  
Eddie Van Halen played loud on the stereo, occasionally faded out by crackly broadcasts from Triplesafe HQ. The larger of the two men, whose bristly black mustache and greying eyebrows made him resemble a belligerent 250lb badger, drummed his fingers on the steering wheel.  
'We still running late, Hank?' he said, eventually.  
His companion, who couldn't have looked more like a 'Hank', looked at the cluttered dash and grunted. 'Couple minutes, maybe.'  
'We'd better make it up.' said Badger, letting out the clutch like it had personally offended him. 'You know how these science guys are. You'd think the goddamn thing was gonna explode as soon as it's one second past due.'  
There was an uncomfortable pause. The van rumbled on, the accompanying purrs of the motorcycles blending with the bass growl of the engine. On the stereo, Eddie began to get quite enthusiastic.  
'Nahh.' said Hank, eventually, and the tension eased.  
Silence prevailed for a few more minutes. The van turned left into Lenox Avenue, a long, deserted stretch of road than ran up the side of Central Park. There was only one other vehicle in sight, which Badger still managed to cut up. The car turned off up a side street, flashing its lights angrily.  
Alone on the street, the Triplesafe van stopped at the red light on the corner, the motorcycles pulling smoothly up alongside the driver's cab. Hank leaned out of his window, spitting his gum at the asphalt.  
'You okay there, buddy?' he called to the guard on his side. The man grinned and opened his mouth to answer. Then, abruptly, his gaze flicked to a point above the cab roof, and the grin switched for an expression of absolute horror. Hank turned to look…  
…and the world suddenly became a very eventful place indeed.  
CLAAAAANNNNGGGG.  
With a force that buckled the window struts and shattered the windscreen, a hissing, blurred thing slammed into the cab from above, punching through the roof and piercing the footwell between the two drivers. Hank and Badger, moving surprisingly fast for men of their size, threw themselves away from the impact, scrambling for the deadlocked cab doors. The men on their bikes stared, years of training lost in a moment when the yellow streetlights revealed their attacker in a hellish, sulphuric glow.  
The van rocked, the heavy-duty suspension grappling with the extra weight. The medusine shadow atop the roof reared up, taking most of the upper half of the cab with it. The doors fell from their ruined hinges, and Hank and Badger hit the ground rolling, their yells drowned out by the echoing impacts. More tentacles smacked down, propelling the shape towards the back of the van.  
Badger recovered first, screaming over the racket that tore holes in his words. 'Wh------------ell's _that?!_ Thing's go----------------ing _eight arms,_ Ha------------!!'  
'---------------------n the papers, th-------------------------c Ock" frea---------------lew up the city!' bellowed Hank. 'What you wai---------------------or? _Shoot_ the---------------ing l--------------ic!!'  
The guards didn't need to be told twice. They needed to be told five times, ordered over the pummeling din, before they finally got the message and drew their weapons. Steadying themselves on the pillions of their bikes, they took aim, and fired.  
It was doubtful whether the first round of bullets had even left the gun barrels before the arms moved. Two of them swept around, folding across their owner's body, and the other two angled sharply downwards towards the armed men. Bullets pinged and whined against the tarnished tentacles, sparking harmlessly from the tough metal segments with a series of angry _spak_ noises. Their tapering heads closed to create maximum weight, the snakelike things whirred inches from the ground and connected with the guard's motorcycles. The bikes hurtled across the road and into the opposite wall, where they exploded prettily. Their former owners were knocked flying, landing in a tangle of limbs against the sidewalk.  
The arms resumed their hammering.  
'Ho-----------------ary Moth------------of G---------' breathed Hank.

On top of the van roof, Otto gave a contemptuous sniff. He'd expected the ambush to be relatively easy, but this was almost insulting.  
His smart arms grasped the frame of the rollup hatch at the back of the van, tearing into the reinforced layers of steel like paper and pulling upwards. The sound this produced was like a platinum-tipped fingernail being dragged down the biggest blackboard in the world. One of the van's ex-drivers folded up in a heap, the noise having apparently struck an odd frequency in his brain. The other, hands clamped over his ears, took one last look at the chaos, decided that he wasn't getting paid enough for this sort of thing, and ran for it.  
Slowly, the hatch was ripped away, exposing the van's interior. There was a bench, built along one side, and, in the far corner, a frightened man in blue overalls. In his hands, an industrial-strength package case gleamed dully.  
Otto landed in the ragged gap he'd created, framed by the flickering light of the petrol fires. Tonight, because his special goggles were still in progress, he wore small oval-lensed shades. He knew the alien, impassive appearance they gave him, and behind the tinted glass his eyes narrowed in satisfaction as the man cowered.  
A tentacle flicked over his shoulder, pincers extending to grip the handle of the package case. Otto readjusted his balance slightly, giving the man a deadpan look.  
'That's mine.' he said.  
Retracting, the arm hit a sudden snag. The case was handcuffed to the guard's wrist. Otto felt a stab of anxiety, but it was quickly overridden by a calm metallic murmur of a thought.  
There was more than one way to skin a security guard…  
'Unlock it.' The man made a shaky movement that might have been a refusal. 'No? Then-'  
_'Hey, Doc!'_  
Something falling, twisting, spinning out of the night sky-  
'Didn't anyone ever teach you to say "please"?'  
_WHUNNNGGG. _  
Even when your spine is cushioned by a hefty metal brace, being on the receiving end of a fast-moving van door aimed at your back is no laughing matter. Otto pitched forwards, the dented metal panel tumbling over his shoulders, and his arms caught him and shoved him back upright. He spun around, all four robotic heads snapping open to spot this new threat.  
_'You!!'_  
'You were expecting maybe Abe Lincoln?' Balanced on his heels on top of the streetlight, Spiderman flung out an arm. A burst of web snickered out from his wrist, catching one of the claws as it rose to meet him. The snared digits floundered, and Spiderman leapt from his perch with razor-edge finesse, using the arching tentacle as a skyhook to throw out another line.  
Otto's first reaction at the sight of his enemy's lithe figure had been one of dread. With the prize so nearly within reach, was he about to be forced to give it up again? He wanted to fight Spiderman, oh yes, in fact it was pretty close to being all that he _did_ want, but not now, not like this…Assailed by their host's fear, the smart arms were momentarily at a loss.  
But then the infuriating bug used his creations like some kind of swingset…using_ his_ weapons,_ his_ allies, against him…  
In the Dali-esque medical nightmare of Otto's metal-fused backbone, ligaments bunched. The tentacles extended with the force of a crazed elephant, swatting the superhero out of the air. One claw clamped around his leg, the other around an arm. Suspended ten feet from the ground, Spiderman flinched as he began to feel a slight pull in either direction…  
'I'm going to tear you apart.' said Otto. It wasn't a threat. It was a description of the future. He tensed…  
**The target is escaping.** The cautioning hiss in his head startled him. **Rectify this.**  
He glanced over his shoulder, just in time to see the guard dart out of the ruined van and dash away up the street. A lower claw chased behind, fueled by desperation and the rage he felt at allowing himself to be distracted- again!- from his goal. It grabbed the man by the scuff of his overalls, dragging him into the air. Otto turned his attention back to Spiderman…  
…who wasn't there.  
'Over here!' called a voice from above. The hero was hanging off the wall, just out of range. Otto was really mad now, and in no mood for this deadly version of Keep-Away. He wanted so badly to silence that taunting voice-  
**Focus, Otto!**  
His arms sounded as urgent as they ever did, and in a flash Otto realised he was on the edge of making yet another emotion-led mistake. On this occasion, however, he'd realised in time.  
Turning his back on his adversary for a few precious moments, he allowed the smaller manipulators of one claw to encircle the handcuff chain that attached the dangling guard to his case. The links crumbled under the extreme pressure, and the claw's heart light glowed triumphantly as the case slid into its grasp.  
_Yes!_  
**Behind us!**  
Otto ducked, his tentacles sweeping up over his head to 'help' the leaping Spiderman on his way to a swift meeting with the nearest wall. Hitting it hard, the hero gasped as the air was driven from his lungs. Humming forwards, the smart arm heads propelled into the young man's body before he could roll away, yanking him up off the ground.  
Peter choked, trying to breathe around the claw at his throat. Reflexively, his hand came up, the fingers twitching to send a stream of web into his enemy's face.  
The arms spasmed, their host falling back, gagging and trying to clear his sight. As Otto clawed the sticky threads from his shades, Peter dodged away from the wall, shooting out a line for added momentum.  
'Looks like we got off on the wrong foot.' he panted. 'Here's the right one!'  
Lights exploded in Otto's vision. Being kicked in the ear is no joke either, especially when the owner of the foot is gifted with super-strength and resents being strangled. Through the stars, he was dimly aware of a wrenching sensation in one of the tentacles.  
Peter, the metal case under one arm, swung into the air and got precisely three metres before an outraged yell from below told him he was in trouble. A fraction of a second later, something snatched his leg, and the world flipped over.  
The case tumbled end-over-end towards the ground, until it was neatly fielded by a claw which wrapped around it, bearing it gently to a safe level. Meanwhile, dropping his opponent from as much height as he could attain, Otto followed through with a swift, vicious sideswipe that sent his enemy tumbling away behind the cover of the wrecked van.  
The night's silence crept back in. Slowly, Otto prowled along the side of the van, the camera eyes at the centre of his upper claws sneaking around the corner. Nothing.  
On the other side of the vehicle, Peter breathed out as heavily as he dared, a hand cradled to his bruised ribs. He didn't intend to risk stepping down onto the ground, not trusting the space between the body of the truck and the tarmac. Anything could fit under there. He continued crawling along the blue-painted vertical surface, his fingers finding purchase on the riveted metal. _Just please,_ he prayed,_ let me be going the same way as him…_  
'Don't do this, Doctor Octavius.' he called. 'Just give me the case and we'll talk.'  
Otto carried on moving. His arms tracked the sound of the young man's voice. Just a little further…  
'I've got nothing to say to you.' he snarled.  
Now level with the remains of the driver's cab, Peter regarded the mess, an idea forming in his mind. He let the notion grow, while trying for a second time to appeal to his opponent's better nature. _Wherever that's got to._  
'Please listen to me.' he said. 'You could be so much more than this.'  
At the rear of the van, Otto hugged the case against his chest and smiled. He could practically _feel_ the Mindmap Chip, speaking to him through the metal. It spoke of possibility, and power…  
'How right you are.' he said.  
His arms were pinpointing the target exactly now. Around the front, near the driver's side, and not moving away. Slowly, his upper left tentacle curved over his shoulder, the head opening and folding back, and there was a rapid metallic_ shiiinnng_ as something new ejected from the centre of the segmented claw.  
It was long, because it had been designed to penetrate to the heart of white-hot fusion clusters. It was tempered, to increase conductivity, and it was serrated, because a straight edge would have distrupted the flow of hydrogen particles over its surface.  
Removed from the sterile environment of the laboratory, however, there is only one possible use for such an instrument, and that is as a bloody massive knife.  
He was conscious that nothing was stopping him from just walking away- in fact the smart arm intelligence was haranguing him on that very subject. He had the chip, and his enemy was hiding. He could just turn, and leave…  
…But then his head filled with pictures, pictures of rustling, lie-riddled paper. _Spiderman Saves City,_ he thought, and the acid burn of pent-up injustice rose in his chest.  
He was very close. Just one more cue, one more little sound, and he'd know precisely where to aim. All of a sudden, a sentence occured to him, a nasty little group of words that would surely provoke a reaction. He leaned forwards, into the wire-strung gap between the truck and the cab.  
_'I know who you are, Parker.'_ he hissed.  
Slipping out from under the front wheels, where he'd been busy for the best part of a minute, Peter drew in a sharp breath. He thought of MJ, and his grip tightened on the chunky pair of objects he'd found in the cab. They made it easier, those words. They helped to take the edge of guilt from the thought of what he intended to do.  
'I know.' he said, tensing against the huge wheel arch. 'But the question is, Doc, do you know who _you_ are?'  
Otto made an incoherent noise in his throat, and leapt. Two claws propelled him over the dented hood, the bladed arm striking forwards. And a moment too late, he smelled the hot blue fug of electricity, saw the sparks-  
And Spiderman dropped, falling from the gaping hole where the cab roof had been, the jumper cables in his hands haloed in humming energy. Time seemed to stretch as webbing whispered from his wrists, each strand taking a heavy crocodile clip with it. Gluing them directly to both of Otto's upper tentacles.  
Web does not conduct electricity. But, guess what, kids? Metal does.  
SSssSShhhhhHHZZZzzzzzzZZZZZ  
Otto screamed. Above him, his arms thrashed, arching helplessly to their fullest extent with the tortures of the current that the cables forced through them. Impossible to think, impossible to move, his body jerked like a tangled marionette in the grip of his creation's greatest weakness.  
But Spiderman wasn't finished yet. As soon as the clips had left his hands, he had occupied himself with forming a coating over one hand, a thick glove of insulating web which, when finished, allowed him to pick up the _other_ object he'd found in the cab.  
Hefting the crowbar, Peter took careful aim, and swung it with all his strength.  
Trailing a wreath of sparks, the thick length of metal sang through the air and struck neatly about halfway up the top left smart arm. Struck _and _stuck, finding a niche of just the right size between two shuddering segments, and wedging there.  
The results were catastrophic. Sensing, through the unbearable disruption, that something was amiss, the vertebrae-like arm made a last-ditch effort to dislodge the tool. Unfortunately for the complex machinery, this entailed trying to contract and stretch out at the same time.  
There was an utterly horrible noise. Pieces of metal shrapnel, yellowish and dull grey, flashed through the electric haze that surrounded the convulsing figure. The crowbar clattered to the ground, barely audible under the buzzing voltage.  
Finally, mercifully, something in the oily depths of the van's engine blew. Everything went still.  
Cautiously, Peter edged closer to his enemy's twitching, prone body. His own figure was tensed, ready to act in a heartbeat, but his voice was quiet, and carried with it a wary edge of respect.  
'…Doctor Octavius?'  
There was no response. Peter leaned over, reached out a hand-  
A claw grabbed it. There was a solid _thwack_ of discharging electricity, and the young man crumpled to the sidewalk.  
Otto opened his eyes. His hair, predictably, was standing up on end, but this was the only part of his appearance that was even remotely amusing. His tentacles twisted and shuddered with latent shocks, the two lower claws pushing him upright with a urgent lurch. Another was functioning just about enough to manage to jerk inwards and pull the case from his numb fingers, bracing it securely against his ribs.  
And the fourth arm was…dead. It trailed on the ground, a limp useless weight. Parts of it were smoking.  
Parts of Otto's brain felt like they were in a similar condition. He was only capable of standing at all because the smart arms had absorbed most of the voltage, preventing him from becoming a human charcoal briquette. This was the third time something like this had happened, and though it had been much worse before it didn't get any more pleasant with practise.  
**We must leave.**  
Otto turned, looking down through blurred, red-hazed eyes at Spiderman's unconscious body. The dead weight of his broken tentacle dragged behind him, bent and blackened segments rasping on the concrete. Wasn't there…something…he was supposed to be doing?  
**We must leave NOW.**  
Somewhere in the distance, sirens started to wail. With a final glance at his fallen enemy, Otto stumbled away up the nearest side-street, taking his confusion- and the Mindmap Chip- with him.


	8. Home

_whew that was exhausting. possibly the hardest chapter to write so far, for reasons that escape me. i think i overdosed on pocky and rainbow powder, which dyes my tongue green and now i have to go to work, so i shall scare all the tourists. hmm what else oh yeah. a very large thank you to everyone who bothered to review so far, you make me feel all snazzy and wheee. also very helpful. skreeewit._

**Part Eight- Home**

'I'm fine.'  
'Blow into this, please.'  
'Ffffff. I'm fine.'  
'Okay, now say ah.'  
'Ahhh. I'm fine.'  
'Good. Just pop this in your mouth for a moment.'  
'Mm _fnnmph!'_  
'Good girl. Now this'll only sting a little-'  
_'I'm fine! _OW!'  
Escher grabbed her arm, glaring at the woman in the long white coat who had just punctured it. 'Leave me alone, will you? I told you, there's nothing wrong with me!'  
'Shhh, sweetie.' Her mother, who was sitting anxiously in a chair alongside the examining table, reached for her hand. In the chaotic jumble of events that had so far followed Escher's return, Suzanne Griffin had found herself unable to stop touching her daughter, just to reassure herself that she was really there. The last day and a half had been a dark dream that no mother should ever have to endure. And then, two hours ago now, the knock on the door…  
A miracle. Her Escher, scratched and grimy but otherwise unhurt, with a sheepish smile and two beaming policewomen in tow. Suzanne had drifted through the whirlwind of hugs, questions, statements and advice in a sort of daze of happiness, one which showed no signs of abating even now, in the sobering surroundings of the emergency wing of Marybride Central Hospital.  
A sandy-haired uniformed man who had been introduced to her as 'Detective Inspector Ramierez, Juvenile Liason Officer' stood by the consulting room door. The doctors, despite Escher's protestations, had given her a careful examination as she sat on the cold metal checkup table. And throughout the entire procedure, Escher kept up an indignant mantra, that she was _fine…_  
Suzanne was glad her daughter felt fine. She just wanted to be _sure._ She couldn't imagine the nightmare her little girl must have been through in the last thirty-six hours. She was not a vindictive woman, but she couldn't suppress the thought of what she would like to do with the…_creature_ that had done this to her, to them…  
'Wanna _wanna _Oreos!' Jamie, who up until that point had been eviscerating a teddy bear on the floor of the consultancy room, had spotted the vending machine in the hall. Suzanne looked imploringly up at D.I. Ramierez.  
'Do you mind…?'  
'Sure, ma'am. Come on, kiddo.' The tall officer pulled some change from his pockets and left the room. Like a small sugar-guided missile, Jamie followed his new best friend. The door clicked shut behind them.  
The doctor, who had been listening to Escher's heartbeat, put down her stethoscope. 'Mrs. Griffin, may I have a word?'  
Suzanne followed her under a curtain and into the office beyond. Escher was left alone in the room, kicking her trainers irritably against the metal supports of the table.  
'Stop fussing, okay?' she called to nobody in particular. Something about the sterile white room made her feel watched. 'I'm four_teen._ And I'm FINE!'  
She was wearing a clean shirt and jeans that her mother had managed to grab from home before they left for the hospital, her own clothes bagged by the police. Her arm hurt, and the antiseptic on her grazed ribs stung. She was sick of being poked and prodded and questioned, and knew that it was far from over yet. All she wanted to do was to go home, and sleep.  
'What do you mean, "traumatized"?!'  
Her mother's voice rang out from the inner room, loud and slightly shrill. Escher had heard that tone of voice before, generally when some luckless CEO rang her up at home to tell her that sixteen hundred cases of perfume had been accidentally delivered to Bali instead of Birmingham. She sat up straighter on the chilly surface, and started to listen.  
'Please, don't upset yourself, Mrs. Griffin. This is just a preliminary diagnosis. Physically, I'm happy to say, she is more or less absolutely fine, but…tell me, have you ever heard of P.T.S.D?'  
'What, is it a time zone? You're the doctor! Just tell me what's wrong with Escher!'  
'It stands for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, ma'am. It's an unfortunate complicationary condition, which-'  
'Post-Traumatic…? Look, I know this must have been hard on her, but my daughter's a strong, sensible little girl. She's acting perfectly normally-'  
'Yes, Mrs. Griffin, that's what's worrying me.' The doctor's tone was concilliatory, but firm. 'Don't you think, given the situation, that we could expect her to act something other than "perfectly normally"?' To be upset, or even hysterical?, Now, I don't want to distress you, but when we think of what might have happened to her…'  
Escher tuned out at this point, as words like 'denial' and 'repression' continued to float from the office door. They didn't get it. She hadn't really expected them to, especially as she had only told them the bare bones of her experience. How could she possibly explain? She'd been abducted, almost scared out of her skin, nearly squashed like a bug, threatened, turned upside down, held over lethal heights, and seriously yelled at, and the worst she had suffered was a couple of bruises and progressively itchier eyes due to a lack of allergy medication. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder _monkeys._ She was F-I-N-E.  
The door squeaked. She turned her head as the doctor reappeared, followed by her mother, who was holding something in her hand. Escher looked closer, and realised that the something was in fact a transparent plastic bottle of serious-looking white pills. Her stomach lurched.  
'Escher, honey…' Suzanne Griffin was smiling, in a way that suggested she was trying to deliver her lines correctly. 'Dr. Lawrence says you're okay to go home, isn't that wonderful?'  
'What are those, Mom?' said Escher, warily.  
'Oh, they're just a little something to help you relax and sleep better.' interjected Dr. Lawrence, cheerfully. 'But, like your mom says, you can leave.' Behind her, Jamie hurtled past the doorway, trailing cookie crumbs. His head was mostly hidden by a large policeman's hat, and he was making a noise that sounded like a stuck pig but was probably intended to be a siren. Dr. Lawrence winced. 'Soon.'  
'Sleep? Sleeping pills? You're going to _sedate_ me?' said Escher, incredulously. 'I don't need drugs! Mom, tell her!'  
'Don't be so silly, young lady.' said her mother. 'Dr. Lawrence knows what's best for you. The last thing you need is to be having bad dreams because of that…that…'  
'He didn't do anything to me!' yelled Escher. 'He was-' She stopped, abruptly. D.I. Ramierez had appeared in the doorway, and appeared to be suddenly listening very closely.  
'…anyway, I don't really remember much.' she mumbled. Her mother and the doctor exchanged a glance, compelling her to add;  
'But I'm not "repressing" anything!'  
'Of course you're not, honey.' said her mother, unscrewing the bottle's safety lid. 'Now take one of these, and then we can go home.'

The night was freshening. Stars were coming out, slipping through the few remaining tatters of cloud. As the hours trickled towards midnight, a bloated moon appeared, waning and distorted like a nibbled chocolate coin. It shone mildly in the sky, casting long, benevolent shadows across the affluent mid-town Manhattan street below. Here, in a world of wide sidewalks and gravel-circled trees, it was easy to believe that nothing out of the ordinary could ever darken the stately doorsteps of the big, attractive apartment buildings that lined the road.  
If anyone had happened to be standing at the mouth of a small side-street across the way, however, their illusion would have been quickly shattered. First came a strange, hazardous scent; not a smell so much as a change in the feeling of the air, a thick charged haze that hinted of danger. Or possibly of a faulty microwave oven.  
Then, part of the shadow that obscured the alleymouth shifted, and detatched. Leaning heavily against the fine stone panels of the nearest wall, Otto slowly felt his way along until he came up against the rounded balustrade of one of the building's entrances. This appeared to present more of an obstacle than he was capable of navigating at the present, and he started to sag.  
Only one of his smart arms was able to do anything to help. The top right was still protecting the reinforced case, and another was fully occupied trying to keep its crippled twin off the ground and out of harm's way. The fact was, without the ability to move and manage its own weight and balance, the damaged tentacle was nothing more than a lump of dead metal. A hideously heavy one at that, exhausting its host with the task of dragging it along. After several blocks of inefficient, arduous progress, one of the lower claws had finally reached over and lifted the wrecked arm by the 'throat' holding it up in a manner rather like that of an eagle's beak gripping its brokenbacked prey.  
Movement was easier now, but no less exhausting. Still semi-stunned, burned and bleeding, Otto wasn't really in any condition to be doing _anything,_ least of all wandering aimlessly through the city on what was becoming an increasingly chilly night, with only one smart arm to act as a guard and, more and more as time passed, a prop. Worse still, he was vaguely beginning to realise that some of the shrapnel that had exploded from his tentacle seemed to have done a number of unpleasant things to his left side, arm, and shoulder. Small rivulets of red seeped from below his ripped coat sleeve, collecting at his fingertips and spattering quietly on the ground.  
Otto had no idea where he was, or where he was headed. But the tentacles did.  
There was only one place they knew of, their swift reasoning ran, where parts could be obtained to fix the damage. The arms had not been in the vicinity of this place for a long time, but they knew it nonetheless. For a long time, in fact, it had been _all_ they had known. Whatever reasons their creator had for failing to revisit it for so long were nullified against the urgency of the current situation. And now they had arrived, and their creator needed to be informed. The sooner the better, because he was leaking in the way organic beings seemed to whenever they malfunctioned, and against all logic seemed to be trying to fall asleep.  
**We're here.**  
Otto managed to open his eyes, fighting the pull of drowsiness that threatened to claim him.  
_Where?_  
Shielding his face from the invasive streetlights, he took a couple of faltering steps backwards and stared dazedly up at the building in front of him. It was a tall, impressive edifice of dark stone, rising up several floors and studded towards the top with a series of large, curved windows. The street-level doorway was raised on a flight of grey steps, under a scrolling archway set into the handsome brick porch. And there, framed between the top of the arch and a decorative ridge of carved masonry, shapes that looked like words…  
He blinked, trying to shake the gathering mist from his vision, trying to focus on the dark, letter-like shapes, and trying, above all, to dispel the feeling of dread that was building at the sight of them. Yes, they _were_ letters, standing out starkly in the streetlight, flowing metal characters running over the arch. Three words.  
NOSCE TE IPSUM

The door proved the first problem. The free arm could have torn it in half within seconds, but something made it halt. It wavered, confused.  
'No.' said Otto, almost indetectably. 'Just…open it.'  
Obediently, the head snaked out, the segments opening slightly like the bloom of a flower. It nosed the keyhole, angling for easier access. Tiny silvery things extended from the claw tips, clicking industriously to themselves as they probed into the lock. After a couple of moments, there was a complicated little noise and the right-hand door swung gently inwards. The arm withdrew, and its lower counterpart pushed the gap wider, propelling their host over the threshold and into the darkness beyond.  
The hallway was warm, close, and, as the weighted doors closed themselves, completely pitch black. Without a thought, Otto reached up to a place on the wall next to the door.  
_Click._  
As the room flooded with light, the arms flicked around and headed purposefully for the tall staircase at the far end. Their creator lingered, or at least tried to, staring at the pictures that hung in their frames on the finished brick and plaster walls. Finally, his three functioning tentacles had to practically drag him up the ironworked steps like an unwilling child.  
After this minor holdup, Otto climbed the four flights with surprisingly little help from his 'assistants'; since entering the building, he appeared to have found an extra reserve of strength somewhere. At the top of the fourth flight, a faded piece of yellow-and-black police tape sagged from the stair-rail to the wall. He shrugged it aside, and a claw ducked under the falling length, finding the door ahead and applying itself animatedly to picking the lock. A few seconds, and it yielded, leaving a clear line of sight through to the devastation beyond.  
With the care of someone trying to tread on the paper-thin ice of a frozen lake, Otto walked forwards, down the wide steps. His footsteps, and the scanning movements of his tentacles, made strange, dopplering echoes in the church-like room. High above his head, massive brickwork arches spanned the length of the floor, creating a huge open-plan space reminiscent of a 1930's factory workroom. Where these met the walls, a series of semicircular windows, trimmed with Art Deco iron frames, allowed the pale light to fall in stretched, patterned beams across the floor. The structure had been modified along one wall to create a split-level anteroom, raised from the main floor by long steps. Everywhere you looked, the chamber was elegant, functional, and utterly, utterly wrecked.  
Metal panels hung from the walls. At some point they had been fixed, square to square, covering most of the walls and floor. Now, only a few were still fully attached, and great sheaths of them were twisted and buckled away from the pitted brick beneath. Some had been dislodged entirely, and lay strewn across the floor. Throughout the room, the warped alloys reflected the moonlight like a hundred funhouse mirrors.  
The brick arches were scarred, chunks of rubble spilling across the ground underneath the exposed girders. Lines of impact showed where heavy objects had struck the architecture, travelling inwards with unimaginable force. By the window, what metal remained on the littered floor was discoloured by the effects of rainwater that had blown in over the months, blown in through the windows where every single pane of glass had shattered as the iron frames had been dragged away…  
…glass, sharp shards flying in the golden firestorm light, a thousand lethal silicate birds drifting in a lazy cloud, spinning, flashing.  
A single scream-  
Abruptly, Otto's arms let out an impatient sussurus, dragging him back to the present. He allowed them to distract him, letting his mind fill with their blessed, anaesthetizing insistence. In these familliar surroundings, every individual thought and memory he could possibly have was as unbearable as if the fissile blade of one of his creations's claws had been rammed forcibly into his own heart. So much easier to shut it away, switch off, and let the A.I do the thinking.  
Directed by their urgent instructions, he climbed the steps at the far end, past scattered parts of overturned tables and the remains of electrical equipment and machinery. This had been the control centre, the computerized heart of the lab. Now, it was a desecrated technological graveyard. Shards and fragments of plastic, metal, glass and wires crunched underfoot with each step.  
Here, there was a metal-panelled wall which for the most part didn't appear to have suffered like the others. On closer inspection, this was revealed to be because the panels, in a wide area about three by five metres square, were much thicker and heavier, sunk deep into the surrounding brick. In the centre of this sleek concealed feature was tiny square of duller metal, and it was to this that the arms led their creator. As if on some kind of automatic pilot, he thumbed the little panel aside, revealing a keypad of faintly glowing blue lights. The right upper arm, curving up over his shoulder, opened its head obligingly to illuminate the keys further as Otto typed.  
_SssssshhhhhhhhhhhhKA-CLUNK._  
Compressed air hissed as the secret doorway swung open, the space beyond automatically filling with pure, bright ion-free radience. The white light shone like an open refrigerator in the unlit chamber, casting the harsh unnatural silhouette created by the arms and their host back across the littered floor behind them. The cavity that had been concealed was a tall inset display rack, made from a tough opaque plastic, backlit so that the material itself seemed to be glowing.  
Lining the upper three shelves, dozens of identical shapes about the size of an open palm sat in neat rows, each upright on its own static-free stand, glistening under a thin protective coating of oil. The shapes resembled chunky three-leaf clovers, with two outer ridges marked with a bright yellow, the rest of the surface being a polished gunmetal grey. The inner edges bristled with connectors and tiny wires, every one tipped with a silicate cap to keep the fragile ends preserved. The lower shelves contained a selection of other parts, from thick lengths of high-tensile wire, to a number of delicate circuitboards of unique design. An array of tools hung on the inside of the door, pliers, heavy-duty adjusters, and other implements with heads so minute that they looked like they could be used to repair watches…belonging to ants.  
The three functioning smart arms darted towards these items as if they were the Holy Grail. Otto knew that they had a blueprint of their own build stored in their memory, and in his current condition they were far more capable than he was of the required work. As the arms juggled with parts and tools, he slid down the wall with his back to the white light, arms folded loosely on his knees above the heavy band of the spinal brace.  
His home; the site of his greatest failure, and the very last place in the whole hateful world that he wanted to be. Otto had never been one to believe in fate, but the fact that circumstance had forced him to return to this museum of painful memories still pretty much confirmed for him the theory that had been shaping itself in his mind through the long months since the accident; that life was nothing more than a sick joke, and death was the punchline.  
Behind him, his smart arms worked busily on their inert counterpart. Extending it to its full length, they had laid it across the floor in the brightest area of glow from the shelves, stretched out thirteen feet from its origin point mounted on the cumbersome, flesh-fused brace. The charred, contorted sections were removed, replaced with the new segments in a fast balletic sequence of welds, connections, tweaks and links. Meanwhile, another claw had removed the cover on the damaged head's 'nerve centre', and tiny sparks flew and scattered as it checked, repaired and recallibrated the intricate circuitry within.  
Lulled by the industrious sounds at his back, Otto's head began to droop. He was tired out, he had lost a fair amount of blood, and even the feel of the cold metal case by his side didn't make up for the suffocating helplessness of being _here,_ this haunted shell of a place where, once upon a time, his entire world had fallen apart in front of his eyes.  
Eyes. His eyes hurt. Hoping the stinging might fade, Otto closed them…  
…and woke up.

He was lying on his back on a soft surface, blinking up with startled eyes at a plastered light green ceiling. There was a small patch of damp there, a darker mottled area with a pattern he recognised. He was always meaning to do something about that, fix it up with some polyfiller or something before the whole lot fell in. They'd called in an expert once, to check up on the patch and the many little friends it seemed to have brought with it, and some not so little either. The man had said it was to be expected in a converted masonry structure of this size, and that all that was needed was a few minutes with a sander and some sealant. One of these days.  
Hang on…  
He was lying on his back on a soft surface.  
He was lying on his _back._  
The revelation shot him upright, into an electrified sitting position, fingers groping blindly and simultaneously over for the nape of his neck and under for the small of his back. Finding nothing, nothing but clear skin and the subtle line of humps that suggested the path of his normal, unmarred spine.  
_What on earth…?_  
His first reaction, past the bewilderment, was that of fear. With so many enemies, had he been suddenly, impossibly deprived of the only things in the world that were on his side? All the power he posessed was in the strength of his creations. Without them to protect him, it was easy to predict that he would survive about as long as a frog in a blender. And how could this have happened in any case? The arms had long since told him everything they had learned as he had lain unconscious that day in Surgery 6, including the neurologist's diagnosis that molten threads of conductive metal had fused to the nerves of his spine. A labyrinth of freak-formed actuators, inextricable links that ferried information back and forth between his brain signals and the smart arm A.I. Completely, utterly irreversible. _Anyone here take shop class?_  
Then the visual information that had been banging on the walls of his shellshocked mind ever since he had sat up finally got through. Exhaling deeply to try and calm himself, he looked up at his surroundings…and almost stopped breathing altogether.  
He was in a room, a long, warm room full of gently curving archways like that of his laboratory, except the roof was much lower and the floor here was carpeted in pine flags instead of metal. The walls were plastered and the same serene light olive shade as the ceiling. A large, richly patterned red Indian rug covered most of the floor, and a distressed wooden sideboard in his left periphery was cluttered with dumpy onyx figurines and pictures of various sizes.  
Artifacts such as these abounded in the room, which looked as if it had been ground zero at a very tidy explosion caused by a collision between an antique shop and a ethnic goods fair. Hand-carved hanging decorations were spread across the walls, in the few places left between the fine art prints and the large windows, which were shaded by simple hessian blinds. Sunlight filtered in through the little wooden slats, filling the room with a golden morning glow in which motes of dust danced and sparkled. It was a well-worn, well-loved, safe cocoon of a living space, and Otto knew it so well that he could have walked blindfold down the whole length of the embroidered rug to the far door without so much as brushing against a single object.  
Wonderingly, sight-without-sense marvelling, he gazed around. Long-forgotten details passed his vision; the little silver trays full of seashells on the windowsill, the wobbly leg of the bedside table propped up with a book, the ivory linen sheets of the double bed on which he had woken, was sitting…  
…the _double_ bed…  
Very, very slowly, Otto started to turn. The sheets rustled as he moved, shifting on shoulders that felt ridiculously light without the weight they had grown used to. Not wanting to, unable not to, he turned like a puppet towards the other side of the bed. The left side, the side against the wall. He turned…  
The sheet was wrapped around her, the soft material covering her slender shape all save for a shoulder and the delicate arch of her neck. She was facing away from him, deeply asleep, her face hidden by the flowing waves of golden-hazel hair that fell across the pillow, spreading out like a halo. Under the snowy blanket, her side rose and fell in gentle rhythm.  
Otto reached out, feeling the world drift to a lazy halt around this place and its golden-mote light. It was as if, at this moment, the whole of the universe existed only to contain his hand, and her shoulder, and nothing else. As his hand crept forwards, he felt the nightmare reflection that had claimed him since the accident begin to craze and crack away, a horrible reality crumbling under the pressure of this one, a truth that was both desired- craved- and far more real. _I had a crazy dream last night, Rosie. I dreamed-_  
He touched her shoulder, felt warm, living skin beneath his, felt her stir…  
…and woke up.

The smart arms had finished. With dilligent care, the upper right claw flexed its dextrous manipulators and replaced the cover at the base of its twin's head. A pause, and then with a hum that rose in pitch and was accompanied by a faint, vibrating rattle, a red light flickered at the heart of the mended digits. Smoothly, the arm rose into the air, stretching experimentally in all directions. It angled its head, tracking its surroundings as the camera eye came fully back online. The other tentacles discarded their tools, their task complete. To an observer, the way they turned to regard the fixed arm, the heads opening slightly to study its new movement, would have seemed satisfied, even slightly smug.  
Strangely, their creator did not appear so gratified. The smart arms had been aware, after a while, of the mind with which they were connected entering a state of deep R.E.M sleep, which they had deigned unnecessary to disturb. Upon waking, however, his actions had been somewhat odd- he had gasped, heartrate soaring, and reached with both hands for his back as if compelled by a powerful reflex. Then, after feeling the neural interface ridges that ran from the brace up to just below his hairline, he had let his arms fall slowly back across his knees, leaning forwards into a hunched position from which he showed no signs of emerging.  
The smart arms dipped towards their host, concerned by this strange behaviour. After a while, however, they stirred and reared back, hissing with alarmed aversion. They were mechanical, after all, and they did not like salt water.


	9. The Choice

_shop class, hm? well well well. over here we call it D.T (design technology) and i was absolutely useless at it anyway. things like wood and metal and me have a special relationship- i don't go near them, and they don't split/break/bend/splinter/maim. anyway oh well i was only one letter off. thanks everyone who pointed that out w. luckily it still made sense when changed, of a sort. _

**Part Nine- The Choice**

Dawn came, grey and sulky. The thick pressure of the day before was breaking- away to the east, heavy clouds gathered and bear-with-a-sore-head grumbled, lit by the struggling sun they concealed. The streets and buildings of New York remained dry, for the moment, but the portentious overcast threatened that it was a temporary truce. When they woke, the city's fourteen million or so residents would no doubt glance at the sky and shake their heads, postpone picnics and other outdoorsy activities, and take in their laundry.  
In this early-morning gloom, there was no-one to notice one more shadow as it made its way slowly across Manhattan, heading in a more or less direct route from mid-town to the run-down river district on West. Otto had left his old apartment with the first threads of dawn, climbing from the remains of the lab window onto the inclined roof. An observer would have noticed that he was very careful not to look in at the windows of the floor above his lab, concentrating instead on the rapid tread of the smart arms as they carried him past.  
He had stayed in his curled-up coma for the rest of the night, dead to the world until the dull sunrise light began to flush the crumpled panels of the floor where he sat. Now, out here in the open, his face was a calculated blank.  
He - _they_ - had reached a decision. It was not a spontaneous one. It had been planned for weeks, more or less, though up until now the concept had been slightly different, weaker even. As an idea, it had needed a catalyst, a nudge which the events of the previous night had been more than ample to provide.  
It was a simple decision, at least in intent if not in practice, and it was this; no more.  
For the smart arms, no more restraints, no more rebukes, no more being baffled or thwarted by an unpredictable human will which- try as they might with all of their formiddable intellect- they couldn't quite understand. For Otto, no more suffering, no more longing for the impossible, no more unbearable dreams.  
And for both, no more conflict, no more frustrations or failures or pointless human errors. No more mistakes.  
With a jolt, the tentacles swung their host down into a disused forecourt, all four heads opening to scan the murky air. Otto stalked across the weed-choked dirt between the enclosing tenement blocks, his now decidedly the worse-for-wear trenchcoat sending flurries of baked dust into minature twisters in his wake. He was limping slightly, dimly aware that the injuries of the day before were beginning to queue up to be noticed. The worst gash on his arm was still bleeding, needing stitches that would have to wait until he got back to the warehouse. It wasn't an entertaining prospect; the arms had quickly become very good at first aid, but without a proper grasp of the concept of pain his creations also lacked a proper grasp of other ideas, such as, say, anaesthetic.  
For the most part, however, Otto's mind was elsewhere as he walked through the maze of waste spaces between each block. His thoughts were more or less solely occupied by the tiny object nestled safely in the case by his side. The Mindmap Chip, the Philosopher's Stone of neuroscience, a Pandora's Box of potential hanging securely not six inches from his fingertips. With it, and the modified cybergoggles that awaited him in his warehouse hideout, he could finally rid himself of the deadly plague of feeling, once and for all.  
_We'll be perfect._  
**Nothing will get in our way.**  
_Not even HIM._  
Spiderman would pay for his interference and lies, just as the city would pay for believing him. The arms were in total agreement on that point. Time and time again, the pestilent web-spinner had proved a threat to their Work, and it was clear that he needed to be eliminated. Humans learned through example, they reasoned, and if New York did not wish to respect the need for the Work to continue unhindered, the example of seeing their beloved, invincible hero reduced to the consistency of chowder before their very eyes might just be enough to convince them otherwise.  
The conclusion of their logic suited Otto very well. In the days and weeks following his escape from death, he'd managed to turn the hatred of Peter Parker and the city that supported him into something approaching an art form. Nobody had even considered giving him a second chance, so as far as he was concerned, not a single one of them deserved one either.  
_People are just scared…_  
Otto paused in the shadow of a bindweed-tangled chain-link fence. Where had _that_ thought come from?  
If some expert of mental processes could have sat down, with red pen and metre rule, and plotted a chart of Otto's state of mind over the last two months, the course that emerged would have resembled a series of jagged mountain ranges, ever descending towards a far and murky zero line. From the distant, selfless peak of his self-sacrifice, the line would have fallen steeply, growing momentum with each new piece of printed or spoken 'fuel' he'd collected. There would have been very few peaks on this hypothetical graph, but most of them would have been centred around the last couple of days, ending in one of the only two spikes of any note at all. If the zero line marked the evil pit Escher had been so chilled to see yawning behind Otto's eyes, the acts of talking to her, warming to her, and finally letting her go represented the biggest step he'd made away from its sucking brink.  
From there the line lurched down again, through the amoral theft and the fight that had followed it, reaching a nadir in his return to his former home. The only other major spike occured when, dreaming, he'd broken briefly through to a memory of the life he had once known- but this positive peak was formless, fleeting, and it faded fast. Now, the line was beginning its final drop, falling with a new purpose and propelled by the tiny chip in his posession and the continent-sized one on his shoulder.  
Spiderman had struck a nerve, all right, with his infuriating words. _'Question is, Doc, do you know who **you** are?'_ Otto seethed at the memory, his thoughts joining up like odd jigsaw pieces, forced together regardless of fit. He remembered the words over his own front door, a grandiloquent statement in a dead language which, seen in retrospect, concealed a dire warning.  
_Nosce te ipsum.  
Know yourself._

A grey cat, nosing in the bins halfway down the alleyway, looked up at his approach. Instantly, its ears flattened, and it yowled, spat, and fled. Automatically turning as the animal streaked away from him, Otto caught a glimpse of glitzy brightness at the end of the passage. At this time in the morning, there was hardly anyone about even on the main streets, so he could see clearly across the road to the building framed between the alley walls.  
A large section of the front of this edifice was covered in eye-watering coloured posters, which to Otto's tired eyes seemed the visual equivalent of a knitting needle up the nose. Amidst the lurid display of shapes and letters, however, he thought he saw a name he recognised. The smart arms arched searchingly around his shoulders as he moved closer…

The manager of the Orpheus Theatre was not having a good day, which was a bad sign considering that it wasn't even four AM yet. He had been forced to get up at two in the morning to receive an important delivery of specially-commissioned scenery, arriving at his theatre only to find that the enormous hand-painted curving representation of a woodsy dell was a) all one piece, b) very enthusiastically packaged with several acres of packing crate, canvas, and nails, and c) two inches too tall to fit through the service entrance at the back of the building. Then the delivery men, who had spent the previous eighteen hours lugging the damn thing all the way across six states, had decided enough was enough and repaired to a 'conference' in the all-hours bar across the road.  
At a loss, the manager had eventually left the colossal thing sitting there by the back doors, shedding packing peanuts and swaying gently, and decided that since he was here now he might as well get on with the hundred and one little tasks that needed doing before the show opened in just under a week's time. The only thing which stopped him (a highly-strung man by nature) from cracking up entirely was the fact that the rehearsals semed to be going very well indeed. After the disaster of the previous week, when a certain Ms. Sheridan Willows had broken her ankle by tripping over a stuffed donkey head that some idiot had left lying around in the wings, the young actress that had taken her place was nothing short of a triumph. Privately, the manager thought that whoever had placed the donkey head in that particular place that day must have been guided by the gods, for Ms. Sheridan Willows had been shrill and demanding with a gift for corpsing that would have put a fair-sized mortuary to shame.  
And the posters, the posters were another thing to feel good about. After a frantic white-knuckle drive halfway across the city, the manager had arrived at the printing firm used by the theatre's publicity department with literally seconds to spare. The new information was duly passed to the layout editor in a breathless five-minute meeting, during which it was agreed by all present that 'Mary Jane Watson' fitted _much _better into the poster's overall design than 'Sheridan Willows'.  
The thick sheaf of display posters had been delivered the previous evening. Now, unlocking the door to his office behind the lobby, the manager took a pair of scissors from a desk drawer and reverentially cut the big package's strings. Sliding the top poster carefully from the bundle, he spread it across the desk and regarded it critically, leaning back out of the invasive cloud of new-ink smell.  
The manager of the Orpheus Theatre had heard of the concept of 'subtle advertising', but he wanted no truck with it. Yes, perhaps the poster was a little hard on the eyes, but it was impressive nonetheless. So what if the design was a trifle busy, as long as it attracted the attention of passers-by? Proudly, he flicked a speck of paper dust from a collection of mauve-and-orange Art Nouveau lillies at the bottom left hand corner of the poster, and then went to find a stepladder.  
It took the best part of an hour to paste the posters up across the long scrolling boards at the front of the theatre. Each sheet was nearly two metres upright, and the clip frames provided very little purchase, making the stepladder wobble precariously with every movement as he tried to acomplish alone with Stick-Eeeze and optimism what was really a job for three men and a bucket of industrial-stength solvent. Finally reaching the end of the row, the manager was just reaching for the brush to secure the final poster at the top, when the thick glossy paper decided it had other ideas. Sagging gracefully, it blanketed the struggling man in the manner of a traditional Halloween ghost, leaving him windmilling Casper-like at the top of the ladder, his ears full of glue.  
Wrestling the suffocating folds from his head, the manager slammed the poster back against the wall, making a satisfying _splat._ As he fought to keep his balance, the faint but unmistakeable sounds of hollow thumps and swearing from around the corner told him that the delivery men had finished their intensive 'meeting' in Chuck's and were now having another go, enthusiastically if a trifle unsteadily.  
Sheer desperation overwhelming the laws of physics, the manager steadied himself, brushed the poster rapidly to remove the air bubbles, and shot down the ladder and into the theatre, heading for the back entrance. Unlike the delivery men, _he_ knew how much the set piece had cost.  
It was a full fifteen minutes before he returned to collect his equipment from the sidewalk outside the theatre, and when he did it was to a fresh outrage. Incredulous, the manager shut his eyes hard and opened them again, but the sight stubbornly refused to go away.  
Where the last poster had been, right there on the end of the row, was a big blank space.  
The manager said a few select words, none of them flattering to the anonymous poster thief. What was the point, he thought, of going to so much trouble designing these bold works of art, with the dates and the principal actor's names so nicely displayed for all to see, if the public's response was to have them away the moment you turned your back?  
Having directed several successful shows in his time, the manager knew that sometimes, obsessed fans' searches for exclusive memorabilia lead to the strangest things disappearing in and around theatres. Posters, yes, and props, costumes, scenery, pieces of the theatre itself…And there were a couple of fairly big names in this off-Broadway production, after all.  
The manager of the Orpheus Theatre shook his head. _Honestly,_ he thought. _The lengths some people go to, just to get close to their heroes…_

That day, the early edition of the _Daily Bugle_ devoted a front page and a whole inside spread to the events of the previous night. By late morning, newsstands all over the city were plastered with the big black-and-red layout of New York's flagship paper, and copies were selling fast.  
With such a wealth of material at their disposal, J. Jonah Jameson's finest had excelled themselves. _OCK STRIKES AGAIN,_ screamed the half-page headline. Smaller was the explanatory _Science Treasure Stolen In Van Attack._ In the remaining space, there was a dramatic photograph of the shredded Triplesafe van, and a medium-sized _Girl Hostage Escapes Alive- Exclusive._  
Standing in front of the large newsstand on the corner of her block, Escher Griffin stared at the hyperbolic text, her expression similar to that of someone who has just trodden in gum. Flicking through the paper, it didn't take long for her to discover that 'Exclusive' meant a paragraph of blurb garnered from various police reports and recycled facts, headed, to her mortification, by an ancient photograph of what appeared to be a surly nine-year-old chipmunk in a school blazer. She grimaced, holding this grim relic of her at least two years B.R (Before Retainer) at arm's length.  
'Urrghh.'  
'You gonna buy that or not?' said the man behind the counter, taking a break from making something indescribable with a hotdog roll and a can of Squeezy-Cheese.  
'No.' said Escher, distastefully. 'Just this.' She stuffed the _Bugle_ back on its rack and put issue six of _Plushee Spaghetti _on the counter.  
'Two ninety-five.' The man gave her a hard look along with her change, which Escher returned, telling herself that there was no chance anyone could recognise her as the Little Miss Goth-Squirrel '99 in the paper. _Please, God._  
Tucking the comic book into her bag, she walked along the crowded morning-rush street. So Doctor Octavius had gotten his chip thingie, though not without a fight if the _Bugle_'s eyewitness account was to be believed. The courier who had, hah, hung around long enough to see most of the events was apparently still recovering from his shock, but the _Bugle_ had seized happily onto the idea of Spiderman's involvement, and it didn't take much imagination to fill in the gaps. It was no wonder that no-one from the papers had tried to get in touch with her as yet- this ambush thing was far more 'exciting' than her so-called 'escape.'  
As for her mother, and the police; they seemed to have decided for the present on the subtle approach. This morning, and as for as much of the previous evening she could remember before she had drifted off into the pleasant fog of of Scyllazine, 50 milligrams, once daily, everyone had been very, very careful not to say or do anything that might upset her. Being treated like one was made of glass had its advantages, but it also quickly became head-drillingly boring. Her mother hadn't been at all keen on her walking the three minutes to the newsstand and back on her own, but had acquiesced as soon as Escher had begun to sound annoyed. Apart from anything else, this was so exactly the opposite of Suzanne Griffin's usual no-nonsense approach to parenting that it was scary.  
Escher wandered through the lobby of the wealthy apartment block where she lived. Padding over the swirly deep-pile carpet in her returned Allstars, she smiled at the young man who stopped the lift door closing for her, and rode the mirror-lined elevator up to the ninth floor. Still deep in thought, she trailed along the corridor and unlocked the front door of Number 17 with the little silvery keycard that she pulled absentmindedly from the inner pocket of her jacket.  
The comic was sealed inside its plastic protector by a strip of white tape, which Escher picked at while she dropped her bag in the hall.  
'Mom?'  
'We're in the lounge, honey!' called her mother.  
Nose buried in the comic, Escher walked into the lounge. 'What did you say, Mom?' she began. 'Who's "we"? Did-'  
She stopped.  
The two men who were sitting on the sofa opposite her mom looked up at her entrance. One raised a friendly eyebrow, the other broke into a classic I'm-so-good-with-kids grin. They wore neat jackets and ties of varying loudness, and they had about the attitude of men who know that making a good first impression was ninety percent of their job. They certainly seemed to have made one on her mother. Suzanne Griffin was sitting on the other side of the coffee table, and her slightly concussed smile was of a calibre Escher had only ever seen when the non-English-speaking owner of half of Emma Rose Parfumerie's stock options had come to the apartment for dinner.  
Another, younger man occupied the armchair next to the sofa, and glanced up on Escher's entrance with a look that was more of an embarrased facial shrug than a smile. The coffee table between them was covered with assorted paraphernalia, including notebooks, a small handheld recording device, pens, and various pieces of photographic equipment.  
'Escher,' said her mother, as the silence began to grow uncomfortable, 'these nice gentlemen from the _Daily Bugle_ came by just after you left. Now, I know you didn't feel up to talking to the police much last night, but apparently the _Bugle_ is very interested in your story, and I think it'd probably do you good to have a little chat.'  
'Yeah, we'd be very interested to hear anything you want to tell us, kiddo.' said the grinner, genially. He had small ferret eyes and a short ponytail. Escher gave him a slow look, logging the "kiddo" away for future reference.  
'I…don't really want to talk about it.'  
Her mother sighed.  
'Dr. Lawrence said this might happen.' she said. 'Honey, it's not healthy to keep it all bottled up inside like this. You haven't hardly spoken since you got back-'  
'Yeah, because the second I got back you and Dr. Lawrence decided to dope me up to the eyeballs!' Escher was getting mad, and got madder when she saw that the other man on the sofa had picked up his notebook to record her outburst. 'And stop that!' she yelled at him.  
'Escher Griffin, don't you dare speak like that.' said Suzanne rapidly, getting up. 'What are these gentleman going to think?'  
'I don't care what they think!' snapped Escher. 'Did you see the photo they put in the _Bugle_? I-' Her voice trailed off as she saw her mother's expression soften. With a supreme effort, Escher tried to think like a mom.  
'You thought it was sweet, didn't you.' she said.  
'Well, I _did-'_  
'Hey, the photo's not a problem.' said Mr. Notebook, easily. 'We can run any picture you like. Isn't that right?' he said to his colleague in the armchair.  
'Uh, sure.' said the young man. Taking off his black-framed glasses, he started to polish them on the hem of his sweater. It was a conspicuously nervous gesture, and one which for no apparent reason Escher found herself following with fascination. Somehow, she felt that he looked slightly familliar.  
'All we want,' continued the first man, still grinning, 'are a few more details. The public are_ interested_ in you, Escher. Cute kid like you gets abducted, people want to find out what happens next. I'd feel pretty flattered, if I were you - our readers want to know you're okay.'  
'Really.' said Escher, privately adding the "cute kid like you" to the "kiddo" on her little mental to-do list of lesiurely retribution. 'I bet you'd feel a lot better if you just sat down and_ talked_ about it, sweetie.' said her mother, worriedly.  
Escher looked at her mother helplessly, then down at her shoes. She felt ganged up on, guilty, and frustrated. She was sure that the story she_ could_ tell was not the one that these men wanted to hear, or the one they would write, given half the chance, based on her words. The **Girl Hostage Escapes Alive** she'd seen at the newsstand was proof of that. They wanted a cute kid outwitting the machinations of a monster. If she spoke to them, no matter how carefully she tried to tell the truth, they'd spin her account into the shape they required. Under such pressure, and with her mom watching her as if she might explode at any second, it would be so easy to just start talking…  
But she had given her word, and more than that, she had sworn to herself that whatever happened, she was _not_ going to be responsible for yet another fluttering page pinned to that damp warehouse wall.  
_For what it's worth…I promise._  
She looked up.  
'Mom, I…I don't feel too good.' She sat down heavily in the free armchair, cradling her forehead. 'I feel dizzy…'  
It was cruel, but it worked like magic. Suzanne was at her daughter's side in an instant, concern crumpling her brow.  
'Oh, honey, are you okay? Do you feel sick? Dr. Lawrence said those pills do that sometimes. Can you see all right?'  
'My head hurts.' mumbled Escher. _Give that girl an Oscar._  
'Okay, well, you sit right there for a bit, while I talk to these people, and then I'll be right back and we can ring the hospital and ask if there's anything we can do.' Her mother stroked her hair, then stood up and turned to the reporters, suddenly all business. 'Sorry, gentlemen,' she said, firmly, 'but I don't think Escher's going to be able to talk to you today. I'll call Mr. Jameson this evening; maybe we can fix up something tomorrow.'  
The men gathered up their equipment as Mrs. Griffin ushered them out of the lounge. Escher heard them in the hallway, the voice of the ponytailed man gracious in defeat. 'Of course, Mrs. Griffin.' he breezed. 'Last thing we want to do is upset your daughter. And of course, I understand you're a busy woman. Didn't I see you at that Summer Styles conference at Macys' headquarters last month?'  
'Yes, I work for Emma Rose.' said her mother's voice. 'Wait a minute…Mr. Shelby…weren't you the one that wrote that article about the success of our new management structure?'  
'Yes indeed, Mrs. Griffin.' said the voice of the man with the notebook, his words fading slightly as the four adults stepped out into the hallway outside the front door. 'In fact, I've got a new theory on that very subject, if you've got a moment…'  
Escher rolled her eyes. Not even a daughter with a possible trauma-related headache stood a chance against her mother's enthusiasm for her job._ But of course, Mr. Shelby, please tell me all about it._  
'Certainly, Mr. Shelby. I'd love to hear about it.'  
The muted conversation continued. Escher sat in the empty lounge, one hand still held against her head just in case her mom reappeared. She was just wondering idly how on earth she was going to dissuade her mother from ringing the hospital when her gaze fell on an unexpected shape, lying on the coffee table's polished surface.  
The young man's glasses. Escher regarded them with disinterest for a minute or two, but then something struck her as odd. Anyone watching would have been puzzled as she started to bob her head up and down, trying to see through the lenses as they sat on the tabletop. Finally, curiosity got the better of her, and she picked them up, holding them to her face.  
Through them, everything looked absolutely normal.  
Which was _not_ normal.  
She was just trying to think about this when the door opened again and the young reporter came back into the room. His camera bag was hanging from one shoulder, and he was rummaging in it as he spoke.  
'Uh, sorry, I think I left my...oh.'  
Escher put the glasses down quickly. 'I was just looking.'  
'That's okay.' said the young man, reaching for them.  
'Nice frames.' Escher lied.  
'Thanks.' He had his glasses back on, now, but somehow leaving didn't seem to be happening. He looked, she thought, like someone waiting for a cue. And then, out of the blue, she remembered where she'd seen him before.  
'You're the guy that takes pictures of Spiderman.' she said. 'Peter…something.'  
The man smiled. It was a guarded smile, but it was genuine nonetheless. Escher couldn't help but feel that this one was a definite improvement on the Two Stooges currently soft-soaping her mother out in the hallway.  
'Parker. Yeah, I am.' he said.  
'You didn't get any at the museum, did you?'  
'No, I was, uh, busy.'  
'And you work for the _Daily Bugle._' Escher was hard pressed to keep the ire from her tone. Peter picked up on the warning.  
'Not really. I'm freelance.' he said. 'It's just that the Bugle buys a load of my work.'  
Escher was gratified to hear this, although she didn't show it. 'You probably think I'm really weird.' she said, perching on the arm of the sofa. 'I mean, everyone wants to be in the paper, right?'  
'Well, no, I don't know.' said Peter, a touch uncomfortably. 'Everyone's a little weird, I guess. I mean, everybody's got at least one thing they would probably find hard to explain about themselves.'  
'Like, why somebody would wear glasses with plain glass in them?' said Escher, sweetly.  
There was a pause. Outside in the hallway, the murmur of voices turned momentarily to laughter, than continued.  
Finally, Peter coughed. 'It's, uh, it's a focus thing.'  
'Or a lookit-me-I'm-just-the-dorky-photographer-you-can-trust-me thing.'  
There was another pause. Once again, Escher reflected that her particular brand of foot-in-mouth disease really wasn't helpful under the circumstances.  
'I'm sorry.' she said. 'I didn't mean that to sound so, um, rude. I like your pictures, Mr. Parker. But I just meant that I'm not going to tell you about Doctor Octavius just because-'  
'"Doctor Octavius"?' said Peter, mildly. 'Now, _there's_ a name you don't hear much anymore.'  
Escher bit her lip, annoyed at herself. Spotting an opening, Peter plunged ahead.  
'Look, if you don't want talk to those two jerks out there, that's fine by me. We both know what they'd do with whatever they got out of you. And you don't have to tell me anything, either. But if you wanted, you could tell me- as an interested party, that's all- _why_ you don't want to talk about it. 'Cause, you see, I think I know why it _isn't…'_  
Escher said nothing.  
'It isn't because you're scared of him. Is it?'  
Peter was trying to make his words as non-confrontational as possible, just in case. The girl seemed to him to be as balanced as a rock, but just on the offchance that she really was traumatized by her experience, he said nothing more, Silence, as he'd learned from experience, is often the most effective weapon of all.  
She frowned, chewing on her lip. There were still streaks of what looked like machine oil on the off-white rubber soles of her baseball boots, and it was at these she stared, apparently locked in an internal battle of will. Eventually, she spoke. 'He…he asked me to not tell the papers anything else about him.'  
'What, he just asked you?'  
'Yeah. I promised him.' said Escher. Taking his silence for scepticism, she added 'See, I didn't think you'd believe me. Your paper-'  
'I told you, it's not my paper.' said Peter, swiftly. 'And you might be surprised what I'd believe, if you only told me.'  
Escher was taken aback by the calm conviction in his voice. Was he serious? He certainly _sounded_ serious. Behind the baffling fake glasses, his eyes were guileless and, what? Sad? In any case, in her position an ally in any form was desirable. She decided to continue with caution.  
'Well, one thing I can tell you is that none of this would've have happened if your friend Spiderman had just told the truth when it really mattered.' she said, and proceeded to outline the details of her brief and bizarre aquaintance with Doctor Otto Octavius.  
It took maybe five minutes for the ultra-condensed version, and then a further few minutes while he asked her a series of carefully-worded questions. Escher noticed that he looked oddly uncomfortable when she talked about the real version of the events at Pier 56, and also that he winced with sympathy as she described the paper collage and the festering feelings it represented. Mostly, however, he just looked concerned…and guilty.  
Finally, he got up and walked over to the lounge's big window, staring out at the view with his back to her, and sighed.  
'There's a lot of people in this city, Escher.' he said, eventually.  
'You don't say.' said Escher. She was in no mood for a game of Stating the Bloody Obvious.  
'And a lot of them…most of them, even…well, they'd probably tell you that Spiderman is a pretty good guy.' Peter Parker turned, taking his glasses off as if they were irritating him. 'But it didn't always used to be like that. And Mr. Jameson…you could say that he's a little…behind the times.'  
'So _he_ lied.' said Escher. 'Is that what you mean?'  
'Spiderman told me what happened at Pier 56.' said Peter. 'It more or less fits in with what you just told me. He tried to tell Mr. Jameson, too, but…' A distinctly stormy expression flicked across his usually benign features. 'Well, apparently the truth doesn't sell papers anymore. Not enough, anyway.'  
Escher nodded. Suddenly, the young man looked taller, an effect exaggerated without the nerdy disguise of the glasses. His explanation had reassured her, telling her what she had already wanted to believe- that Spiderman hadn't really thrown his so-called enemy to the wolves, so to speak, just so he could bask in the limelight. With her faith in New York's hero restored, she felt a new worry begin to surface, and realised with a start that right here, right now, was the perfect time to act upon it.  
'Mr. Parker, can you tell Spiderman something for me?'  
The voices outside got louder, coming nearer, and she started to hurry.  
'Tell him to watch out, okay? If he could've seen Doctor Octavius talking about him, like I did, he'd know what I mean. But, umm…but tell him to try and give him another chance. 'Cause, uh, he let me go, and um…' Escher trailed off, trying to convey what she barely understood herself. '…I think…I think he might not be too far gone. Yet.'  
Peter smiled. 'Sure.' he said. 'When I see Spiderman, I'll tell him.'

_goo. sorry this took a little longer, btw but my pesky real life got in the way. i went to a party and this guy said lemme show you something'll make you feel all floaty and whoo. so he picks me up and makes my spine go cltchh, says apparently it'll release endorphins. well now i've had a headache for two days straight and i feel bruised all over. the moral is, don't let guys mess with your spine.  
p.s aninokitsune, what's AU? i am intrigued. i'm also sure i came across a fic like the one you described a while ago.  
hum. thanks everyone for your reviews and the awww. i am a connoisseur of awww._


	10. A Final Touch

_I DID A FRONT COVER for this thing. it is available to lookie at here on my DA account. eee i like pencil.  
whoosh. and i suppose it makes a kind of sense that the chapter which took me longest to get up here signifies the longest passage of time in the story. something was wrong with i believe. it did not want to play dice. then again neither did i, i just wanted to upload my frigging chapter.  
in any case i'm happy now, since i finally managed to fufil my ambition of slipping the word 'bunnies' into the story. it's all a writer could ever hope for sniff_

**Part Ten- A Final Touch**

The storm failed to break that day, or the day after. The week slouched on, dragging reluctantly from one sullen morning to the next. With New York trapped between sticky heat and cloudy skies, true summer seemed to have got itself lost somewhere. Sporadic showers, never more than a tired spritz of warm mist, did nothing to alleviate the pressure in the muggy air.  
Around the river, the heat was magnified by the death of the refreshing sea breeze that usually prevailed. On the morning of the fifth day, another faint drizzle started to fall, choosing as its target the abandoned district of old commercial buildings that ran up the length of the Hudson on Manhattan side. The ancient formula of light rainwater added to several square miles of fried ground resulted in a strange, heady scent rising from the dampened earth. It filled the air as the drizzle finally petered out, moving along to the more receptive neighbourhoods up north.  
The remains of the rain trickled apathetically across the dilapidated warehouse roof. Inside, patches of the floor were dark and slippery, the drifts of dust bunnies dissolving to form a treacherous coating where water had leaked through the missing shingles. What little determined light could escape from the overcast sky gave up when it hit the cobweb-shrouded windows, deciding instead to go illuminate somewhere with a shade more party atmosphere, like perhaps a cemetery.  
It was just was well, given his surroundings, that Otto didn't need natural light. The surface of the desk where he was working was bathed in a bright scarlet glow from the heart lights of his smart arms, an even, high-wave flood that never fluctuated and suited the meticulous nature of the project admirably. No matter what the weather outside was doing, no matter what time it was, he and his 'assistants' could carry on without interruption.  
And, for the best part of five days, that was exactly what they had been doing. Hour after hour, Otto remained bent over the cluttered desk, his attention entirely occupied with the parts in his hands and the plans in his head. Outside the warehouse, the moon and shrouded sun played a nonstop game of tag across the sky, but inside the shadows creeping across the mottled walls passed unnoticed, the passage of time only marked by the slow growth of the pile of crumpled blueprints and calculations that lay scattered around the legs of the desk and the chair where he sat. This evolving scrapheap began as a small drift, but by the time the sun rose on the fifth day it had grown to a sprawling Everest of discarded creativity, sliding noisily across the floor in avalanches whenever he stood up. The paper mountain wasn't disturbed often, however- such breaks as he took were infrequent, sporadic, and short. For long stretches, the only sounds were the faint spit of the circuit welder, and the tiny reports as he and the dextrous manipulators of his creations trimmed wires, scored circuitboards, and sifted, endlessly, through the vast reams of neurological research he had gathered from sources all around the world. These pages and pages of studies harvested from the humming computer by his side were invaluable, the key to unlocking the potential of the Mindmap chip which, for the moment, lay securely in a static-free holder on the desk.  
The perfect template it contained was of little use to him without the functions he was painstakingly building into the goggles. What it _could_ do on its own was to scan and apply the information stored within it to to create an accurate map of his brain, which it could then hold in its memory for immediate access, updating with each successive pass. What the goggles were designed to do was to interpret this information, recognising certain signals and where in his mind they were coming from, and then act upon it.  
Otto turned the goggles over, a claw reaching down to steady them while he added a couple of final modifications to the intricate socket that waited to hold the all-important chip. The original plan, or Mk 1. as he now dismissively labelled it, had been to use the device to better link the smart arms to the specific areas of his brain that dealt with outside information, visual signals, and logic. This would make for quicker, less conflicted communication between his own thoughts and the smart arm A.I, cutting down reaction times and cutting out the arguments and confusions that sometimes reduced the arms and their host to the symbiotic equivalent of two Olympic rowers trying to steer in opposite directions in the same canoe.  
Mk. 2 did all this, and more. The completed goggles, linked directly both to his tentacle's process centres and to his own brain, would create a cycle of analysis that rescanned his brain instant by instant, searching ruthlessly for one particular target.  
This enemy- or strictly speaking, enem_ies,_ because an average human brain contains billions of them- were ultramicroscopic strings of amino acids called neuropeptides, or N.P's. These energetic little chemical messengers are found throughout the brain, specifically in the frontal cortex, the temporal lobe and a very important quarter-pound of knotted neurons called the diencephalon. (To get an idea of where that is, poke the skull behind your left ear. Congratulations, you have just come within an inch and a half of squishing your diencephalon and putting yourself into a coma. Thank goodness you have a skull, huh?)  
Whenever a neuropeptide hits a neuron cell, in the diencephalon or elsewhere, the resulting reaction triggers our emotions. Feelings, sentiments, personality- everything that distinguishes the character of a human soul, all of these are initiated by the sparks of neuropeptides that happen second-by-second in the depths of our brains.  
That was the main subject of Otto's researches, and that was where the Mk. 2 goggles were calculated to come in. Put simply, they were designed to turn the data provided by the Mindmap chip into precise electrical impulses, fritzing the N.P molecules before they could spark. With the two pilot nano-electrodes in position, Otto's mind would be wiped of anything resembling human emotion. Goodbye to human error, goodbye to clouding conscience, goodbye to guilt and regret and the restraints of morality.  
Goodbye, in fact, to Doctor Otto Octavius.

'It's finished.'  
The faint _click_ of the welder on the tabletop echoed in the musty, dripping space. Otto laid it down and sat back, picking up the goggles in both hands so that the socket in the nose-bridge faced upwards. Two tentacles dipped over, one standing by as the other angled down and delicately lifted the Mindmap chip from its holder, placing it in the socket. Otto cradled the bridge steadily while the fine manipulators of both upper arms worked on the dozens of tiny connectors, settling the chip into the cavity with the sort of care that befitted such a unique treasure. So far as the smart arm A.I could have been said to 'respect' anything, superior technology headed the list.  
A claw reached up to take the completed goggles from his hands, placing them on their protective stand. With the layers of circuitry concealed beneath the smooth black metal and plastic surfaces, they looked just like an ordinary pair of radiation goggles, although slightly heavier and graced with a number of unusual features. Firstly, there was the snaking length of articulated metal that attached to the band at the back, about four inches long and ending in a spiny socket. Then, the pair of shining alloy studs on the sidepieces, each with its own nano-electrode pointing inwards like tiny fangs. And finally, the Mindmap chip itself, mounted between the two lenses, a silvery glow against the dull black bridge.  
Otto regarded his handiwork. He'd expected to feel satisfied, even pleased. This was, after all, the culmination of two months of planning, week after week of schemes and research and hard, hard work. Instead, he just felt slightly worried, a nagging forboding that felt a little like a perpetual stomach ache.  
**Tomorrow night, Otto. That will be the real triumph. **  
The heads turned, opening, leading his gaze to the bright splash of colour tacked to the wall by the desk, an insanely cheerful mix of flowers, trees, fairies, and psychedelic lettering that looked very out of place on the decaying rust-shot brickwork.

_OPENING NIGHT PERFORMANCE  
The Orpheus Theatre Presents  
A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM  
Shakespeare's Dazzling Tale of Love, Lust and Magic  
starring LINDA CURTIS as HELENA  
ANDREW SCHWALM as LYSANDER  
MARY JANE WATSON as HERMIA  
WILL MADOC as DEMETRIUS  
July 29th to September 1st_

'Yes.' said Otto, standing up. He took a couple of faltering steps back and nearly fell, the smart arms whipping around to stabilize his stiff, tired limbs. 'It's the perfect opportunity. Parker, his girl, and plenty of witnesses to spread the word.'  
**And then there will be no one else to challenge us.**  
'No more interruptions. No more errors. No more_ me.'_ he said with grim satisfaction. 'We will be perfect. Complete union at last.'  
Otto allowed his creations to lift him off his feet, carrying him fluidly across the warehouse floor. Even when he was at his weakest, they remained unaffected; while his existence endured, they would never tire.  
'I won't ever let you down again.'  
But there was another worry, a small pang of guilt that had been prodding him for days. He had tried to ignore it, but whenever he had stopped thinking about his work for more than a few minutes it would return, niggling at his mind like an itch that refused to be scratched. It had to do with the small rectangular shape that was currently lying on top of a pile of printouts in the corner of the chaotic alcove of his 'study'. He had discovered it lying on the floor shortly after returning to the warehouse to complete the goggles, and he still couldn't decide what to do with it.  
A claw extended and caught the thing up from the pile, dropping it onto the desktop. Sitting back down, forehead resting on his hands, Otto stared at the black, pencil-marked front cover of Escher's sketchbook as if it was a cryptic crossword.  
**Get rid of it.**  
'No.'  
**What, then? It is occupying your attention. Destroy it.**  
'No! It's…someone else's…work. I'd like to think that _we _understand what that means.'  
**The Mindmap chip is someone else's work,** the whispers reminded him. **We still took it. We recognised its use. But this is worthless.**  
'Not to her.' Otto said, picking the sketchbook up. Pencil lead on black shone slightly as the light caught it, revealing hidden patterns, words, odd scribblings.  
_We could take it back…_  
Even unspoken the words sounded feeble, the uncertain germs of a thought which he didn't dare voice. Nevertheless, the arms heard, and were puzzled.  
**Why?**  
For a long time, Otto couldn't think of an answer. The smart arms stirred, sensing his struggle and trying to understand what was distressing him. A claw brushed his cheek, and with the touch of the slick, chilly metal came the memory of a human handshake, skin on skin…  
He flipped through the book's crowded pages, sketch after sketch flicking in front of his eyes. Right at the back, a jagged, torn ridge sticking out from the spine binding sparked another memory, sending a hand feeling into the inside pocket of his trenchcoat. Something crackled under his fingers, and he withdrew a crumpled, folded piece of paper. The pencil had rubbed and faded, but the sketchy eight-limbed figure traced across the wrinkled surface was still just about visible.  
In the bottom left hand corner, a faint series of dark marks bled through from the opposite side. Otto turned the page over.

_This Book Belongs to Escher G.  
If found, pleeeeeeeze return to 17 Lyndstrom Heights, 156 72nd St, M, NYC.  
Thank you!_

This sharpie-scrawled request was followed by a smiley face with a protruding tongue and, for no apparent reason, a big stitched lobotomy scar across its forehead.  
Otto folded the page and tucked it inside the book. Glancing up at the dripping roof, he rummaged in a pile of old paper wrappings that he'd found in a crate in the warehouse's basement, selecting a large envelope. He slid Escher's sketchbook into it, and sealed the flap.  
'Tomorrow night, this will all be over.' he said, trying to sound decisive. Or at least less pleading. 'No more distractions. I promise. But, tonight, we're taking this back to its rightful owner. Because…because it's right thing to do.'  
**What is 'right'? Otto? Remember the last time you decided to do 'right'? Remember your reward? 'Right' is not a profitable equation.**  
He shuddered at the edge to the words in his head. The smart arm A.I never got 'angry'. It didn't need to. It just got…insistent, and in its insistence it knew all his weak spots, everything that made him sting. Every painful mental scab.  
'Just once.' he whispered. 'One last time.'  
The arms clicked, heads flexing, their blood-red lights arcing through the damp, dusty air. They had been designed to protect their creator and aid his Work. Their intelligence had evolved since the accident- some might say their original logic had bent, twisted under the pressure, but still...  
Yes, they had interpreted their purpose on a higher, all-encompassing level, a purpose far from the glorified safety-gloves that the original fusion experiment had needed them to be, but the basic laws of their programming remained the same. In the face of this tangled emotional turmoil, and knowing they were so close to finally becoming truly one with their host, the cybernetic intelligence was uncertain.  
**We need absolute commitment, Otto…**  
'And you'll have it. I promise,' Otto repeated. He knew that the smart arms had long since picked up on the meaning of 'promise', laboriously grasping the notion of words-that-bind and how they could use them to their advantage. 'Just let me have tonight. We can be there and back in an hour. That's all I want.'  
He looked up into the unblinking stares of his creations; the once-upon-a-time dumb assistants that catastrophic fate had turned into the eloquent black-cap judges of his free will.  
'Please?'  
There was a silence. Finally, the heads closed, shutting off the heart lights and casting the warehouse walls back into semi-darkness.  
**Yes.**

'How now, my love? Why is your cheek so pale? How chance the roses there fade so fast?'  
'Belike, for want of rain, which I could well between them from the tempest of my eyes. Mine eyes, I mean. Aghhh! I can never get that straight.'  
Peter smiled, riffling through the pages of the heavily-annotated script in his lap. Beside him, leaning up against the peeling bark of the willow tree that shaded them from the threatening sky, MJ let her head flop forwards into her paperback copy. Frustrated, she started to bang the cover against her forehead as if trying to force the words directly into her skull.  
'You're doing great.' he reassured her, putting a hasty hand between the book and her head. 'Do you want to go on?'  
MJ sighed, brushing her hair back from her face and dropping the book onto the grass. Around them, the few optimistic New Yorkers who had decided brave the ominous clouds to eat lunch in Central Park strolled by, around the edge of the breeze-ruffled waters of the aptly-named Pond. 'Yeah.' she said. 'I've got to learn this before this evening. If I start mixing up my mines and thees and thys in the dress tonight, Wegman's going to freak. Which he does about nineteen times every rehearsal anyway.'  
'Ah, me!' said Peter, tracing his finger along the script. 'For aught that ever I could read, could ever hear by tale or history, the course of true love never did run smooth.'  
His girlfriend took a deep breath, and summoned a look of heartfelt passion. 'Oh, hell! To choose love by another's eyes! Or, if there were a sympathy in choice, war, death, or sickness did lay seige to it, making it as momentary as a sound, swift as a shadow…' She dropped her head for a moment, lips moving soundlessly, then raised her chin, her sky-blue eyes flashing with a fierce triumph. '…short as any dream, brief as the lightning in the collied night, that in a glance unfolds both heaven and earth, and 'ere a soul hath power to say, behold! The jaws of darkness do devour it up…so quick bright things come to confusion. I did it! I actually nailed it!'  
'Okay, that means you get a…Z, two B's and a K.' said Peter, poking through the bright little shapes in the bag on his lap. The candy-alphabet approach to learning lines had sounded bizarre when MJ had first explained it to him, but she swore it worked, and it definitely helped diffuse the pressure created by her need to learn five months of lines and blocking arrangements in a week. It's hard to get involved in a screaming match over the inflection of a rhyming couplet when you know it's going to cost you two day's worth of sugar-coated vowels.  
'N 'ee do th' last scheen nuh?' said MJ, indistinctly.  
'Huh?'  
She swallowed. 'I said, can we do the last scene now?'  
Peter pulled a face. 'I thought you knew that one. We've done it loads of times.'  
'Ahh, you just don't like it 'cause you know it's the one where I have to kiss Andy.' said MJ, grinning impishly and flicking a Q at him.  
'No!' laughed Peter. _Yes._ 'I told you, I absolutely don't have a problem with that.'  
'Yeah, only because I told you he felt like slugs.'  
'No, anyway! Really, I'm not jealous or anything, I swear.' He rubbed the back of his neck, feeling it starting to grow hot. He had seen Andrew Schwalm only once, while picking MJ up from a late rehearsal; her co-star was a tall, golden-haired, and extremely talented actor with the features of a young Greek god. After their brief meeting, Peter had reflected that there really _was_ such a thing as hate at first sight. _And what's with the "Andy"?_  
'Then you should sue your face for libel.' MJ touched his flushed cheek and poked out a purple-dyed tongue. He caught her wrist, and she ducked under his arm and kissed him, lightly. Then, suddenly, she pulled back, all seriousness.  
'Speaking of libel, I heard Jameson's getting edgy about losing his exclusive story on that kid.'  
Peter stared down at the printed type of the script in his hand. He looked at the words without seeing them as he answered.  
'Yeah. He keeps getting different people to phone back, but she's smart. All he gets is a new excuse every time. And of course he's terrified of overdoing it and annoying her mom. I mean, I _met_ her mom, so I'd say that was a good call on his part.' His expression darkened. 'But now he's saying that if she won't talk, he'll write a 'dramatic reconstruction' based on the police reports and whatever else he likes.'  
MJ was similarly outraged. 'Oh, he's…that's…just unbelievable!'  
'He's done worse, believe me.' said Peter, grimly. He had been on the receiving end of enough barbs from J. Jonah Jameson's poisoned pen to justify the stoniness in his voice.  
'That poor kid…' said MJ.  
'Huh, Escher Griffin doesn't care about Jameson.' Peter leaned back against the broad treetrunk, knitting his fingers together in his lap. 'It's like she's immune or something. I talked to her for less than ten minutes and I could tell that she's got a better understanding of Doctor Octavius than most of this city. I don't know how, but I think she managed to get through to a side of him that the _Bugle _would say doesn't even exist anymore.'  
He looked up, met MJ's concerned gaze, and smiled sadly.  
'We owe that side our lives, MJ.' he said.  
MJ was about to reply, but before she could open her mouth her boyfriend suddenly sat bolt upright, a familliar expression of stunned concentration stamping across his face.  
'What is it, Peter? Is someone in trouble?'  
In one rapid movement, Peter slid upright, pulling her up after him. Grabbing her book and the remains of their lunch, he took her hand and bolted across the grass towards the distant railings that seperated Central Park from the surrounding streets.  
'Yeah! Us!'  
As MJ raced after him, a fat spatter of water made a startlingly loud _tik_ on the paper of the script in her free hand. It was followed by another, and another.  
'…We're gonna get _soaked!'_

Peter might have been far less happy to help MJ rehearse for her performance if he could have glimpsed the kind of hands that Mr. Wegman's publicity material was ending up in. The eye-catching flyers had been circulated and displayed throughout the city for the last week, and some of the eyes that they were catching were very interested indeed…  
Harry Osborn stood in front of the huge window in his father's study, watching as sheets of water dashed themselves against the panes. The storm was really getting the hang of it now, becoming more like a vertical sea with little slots of air in it than anything else. It was barely seven o'clock, but the thundery clouds had already blotted out most of the weak daylight.  
Turning away, he transferred his attention onto the flyer in his hand. Even now, hours after he'd first read it, the thought that MJ hadn't even bothered to let him know that she had landed such a great role felt like a dull stab in his guts. In his current frame of mind, Harry saw her relationship with Peter as yet another way in which Spiderman, in the guise of his best friend, had managed to stab him in the back. In a way, it made what he was about to do a little easier.  
He caught himself looking up, across the long room to the big mirror on the far wall. He'd had the wall rebuilt, the glass replaced, blocking off the hidden room and its unthinkable secrets. If only out of sight could ever be out of mind, he might have been able to meet the eyes of his own reflection willingly.  
Instead, to escape the accusing glare of his mirror-image, he turned his back on it and walked back across the room. Sitting down at the desk, he spent a few minutes tapping the flyer against the lacquered wood, then let out a decisive breath and pulled the phone across to him.  
'Hello? Harry Osborn. Yeah…you got the photograph I.D? Good…good…uhuh…what? Room service? Don't worry about it, I'll take care of…_how much?_ No, uh, no…that's, um, fine. Okay, well, I told you I'd call and give you the when and the where…'  
For a moment, Harry hesitated, studying the flyer in his free hand, trying to get his thoughts straight. Then he remembered Mr. Elmore's patronising smile, and his grip tightened reflexively. The glossy paper ripped, providing a harsh counterpoint as he spoke.  
'I think the perfect, uh, opportunity…has just presented itself.'

For the second time in as many nights, Escher Griffin found herself in charge of her own little apartment kingdom. Her domain; eight large rooms, her subjects; one, five-year-old, asleep. The power was dizzying.  
Her mother had been summoned to a series of emergency meetings at Emma Rose HQ, a crisis situation having apparently arisen over a shortage of beluba in Beirut (or possibly the other way round). She had been unwilling to leave Escher alone for the evening, but had finally succumbed to the pressure of her constantly bleeping pager and her daughter's wide-eyed assurance that she was perfectly capable, and, yes, she was taking her medication.  
It wasn't a lie. Escher _was_ taking her medication, in fact she was taking it, cheeking it, spitting it into a piece of tissue and flushing it down the toilet. Blissful zombification was not a condition she desired.  
The spiky Gorey clock on the wall above her bed crawled towards eleven. Escher's bedroom was quite big, with large French windows leading out onto a small balcony, overlooking the street nine floors below. At the moment, however, visibility was limited to about two inches past the glass, everything else being lost in the torrential rain that poured from the sky, turning into vicious spray where it struck the balcony and whipping away into the night. The fierce rattle of the water was muted inside the room, the purple-painted walls reverberating to different sound- that of Johnny Hollow with the base turned up to max, though quiet so as not to wake the sleeping sibling across the hallway.  
Escher was drawing, or at least trying to, on pieces of odd paper that she had tacked together and pinned to the slanting stand on her desk. Her pencil slipped off the edge of a sheet, and she sighed.  
_Life without sketchbook, day five._  
The floor was littered with other doodles, not to mention books, mixed-up CD cases, and the other assorted detritus of a creative fourteen-year-old's life. There were some posters on the walls, a few of which were carefully framed, and a scattering of blu-tacked drawings. Escher did try to keep tidy, but the inevitable overspill of ideas from her head made things very hard. As did her goldfishesque attention span.  
Now, she sighed again, clicked her pencil lead, and got up. She had let things get out of hand recently, finding that the memory of her 'adventure' made things like cleaning her room seem mundane and irritating by comparison. The fact was, that whenever she read or saw on the news anything relating to the theft of the Mindmap chip, she got an acute feeling of uneasy malaise, mixed with an indefinable guilt. It was in her nature to hate leaving loose ends, and in her view Doctor Octavius represented a whacking great big one. She couldn't help feeling as if she should have done or said something more to help him, while she had the chance. Now, back in this well-known world of safe, familliar things, Escher felt helplessly out of the big picture.  
Her mother had been understanding, as far as she _could_ understand, but Escher was prepared to bet that not even Suzanne Griffin trying to be understanding would put up with such decorative features as popcorn on the rug or dismantled bike saddle parts spread across the bed. She picked up a pile of books, and started to slot them back into the bookcase by the window.

Half an hour later, there was a definite improvement. Escher stuck the four dollars and sixty-two cents she'd found in the process into the pocket of her jeans, and looked around at the neat room with a grin. The cleanup had also unearthed a pair of favorite stripy socks, an unopened packet of gum, and a treasured book which she had given up for lost, finally located down the back of the wardrobe. This she opened, sitting back against the newly-made pillows on her bed, her clean white sneakers denting the chequered bedspread while she leafed through to a well-thumbed page. Outside, over the hammering rain, the first thunder grumbled.  
_Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,  
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore-  
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,  
As of some one gently rapping_  
Clk  
Escher looked up. She could have sworn she'd heard a faint noise…a little impact just audible under the din of the storm. After a moment of rainy silence, however, she returned to the page.  
_rapping at my chamber door_  
CLACK  
That was _definitely_ a noise.  
'Hello? Mom?' The empty room sucked at her voice, which wobbled slightly despite her best efforts to the contrary. She shook herself, and when nothing further happened, she tried to carry on reading.  
_Then into the chamber turning, all my soul within me burning,  
Soon again I heard a tapping something louder than before_  
WHUMPclackTHUD  
'NnnaaAAaahhAAAhh. Shrimp, if that's you, I swear I'm going to skin you alive!' yelled Escher, bouncing off the bed as if it had ignited and wrenching her bedroom door wide open. The hallway was in darkness. There was no light under her brother's door.  
About a year earlier, on another unsupervised night, Escher had decided to watch a very scary film. It was Japanese, and it involved a cursed videotape which killed you, or rather killed the film's characters who were full enough of plot-driven stupidity to watch it. The feeling that Escher had got when, at exactly the wrong moment, her mother had happened to ring her to see how she was getting on, was extraordinarily similar to the way she felt now. Every single hair on her body seemed to be trying to get to safety on the top of her head.  
She stood in the darkened doorway for some time, then swung resolutely round and sat back down on the bed. _I have read this poem hundreds of times. I am not ten. I am not easily frightened._  
Slowly, she made herself pick up the book.  
_"Surely," said I, "surely that is something at my window lattice;  
Let me see, then, what thereat is, and this mystery explore_  
TAP WHAPwhapTAP  
_Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing,  
Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before;  
But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token_  
THA_DUNK…hssssssssrattle…_  
Escher sat bolt upright. The last sound had made the window jump in its frame, and even through glass and chucking rain there there was no mistaking that low, mechanical murmur.  
'No.' she mouthed, an incredulous, half-scared grin spreading over her face.  
She slid off the bed, flipping the heavy weighted catches that held the balcony windows. A push, laboured against the wind, and the glass door slid back, letting in a blast of icy rain-laced air that blew her hair back around her ears. Squinting against the storm, she leant forwards and peered over the edge of the narrow balcony…  
…and stepped back, retreating to the doorway, her backwards paces mirroring the forwards movement of the arm that had snaked up over the railing. The digits of its claw were fully spread, the red glow at their centre casting an intense light into her face. Nervously, she shielded her eyes, bright spots dancing in her vision.  
'Uh…hi.' she said to the arm.  
Two more tentacles snaked over the balcony, snaking up and around to ground their human host on the streaming tiles. As the guard arm neared her head, Escher backed off a little further, standing just inside her room. A jagged fork of lightning arced across the clouds, and as Doctor Octavius landed on the balcony his heavy silhouette was suddenly backlit in a split-second blue-white glow. There was no denying, it was a hell of an entrance.  
'Good evening.' he said, and the fourth arm flexed gracefully upwards and removed his shades.  
'Whg.' said Escher. After a moment she explained; 'Eeee.' Then, when sheer surprise finally let go of her lungs, she managed; 'Sorry…I, uh, I'm on my own here and when I heard thumping I kind of thought you were ghosts.'  
Otto gave her a quizzical look. The initial shock of his arrival had made her overlook for a moment how completely drenched he was. His hair clung to his forehead, the blustery downpour whipping tangled hazel strands into his eyes. Wiping his face pointlessly on his sleeve, he spotted the book in her hand.  
'Ghosts. I see.'  
She followed his glance, feeling rather slighted at the dry amusement in his tone. 'I was reading The Raven. You know it?'  
'Poe. Of course.' Escher wasn't sure, but through the rain she thought she saw the hint of a smile flick across his shadowed features. 'It was one of R-'  
There was a nasty little pause. It might well have developed into a much bigger one, but at that moment another burst of lightning flashed the sky white to the north. The smart arms stirred anxiously, and one of the heads dipped into the pocket of Otto's trench and extracted a thick envelope. The sight of it appeared to remind him what he was supposed to be doing.  
'-Anyway. We were, uhh, in the area, and I thought I might as well drop this back to you.'  
Escher took the envelope and ripped it open, her fingers fumbling with the flap in her excitement. 'My sketchbook. My _sketchbook.'_ she squeaked._ 'My sketchbook.'_  
'Don't mention it.'  
'My. Sketchbook.' She hugged the book to her chest, jiggling on the spot with glee, and looked up at him. Her eyes were full of open, delighted gratitude. 'Thank you so much! Oh, god…I'd hug you, but you're a bit, um, kind of…wet.'  
Otto looked away. The girl's heartfelt appreciation was unexpectedly painful to him, after so long with so little like it.  
'Yes, it's raining pretty hard out here.' he managed.  
Escher wandered back into her room, She had eyes only for her sketchbook, flipping through the pages like it was the lost Rosetta Stone translation. Vaguely, she waved a hand.  
'Sorry, yeah, come in.' she said.  
Otto froze with surprise. 'Oh, no, I don't think-'  
Lightning struck yet again, much closer this time. Otto's hurried refusal was cut short as all four of his smart arms made an unanimous decision to get away from the huge amounts of natural electricity currently bouncing around in the sky, jerking forward mid-sentence and dragging him through the open French windows and into the room beyond.  
Escher put her book down on the desk and turned around. 'Hah, you know, it's never this tidy in here normally. It's just that _oh my god.'_  
'What?'  
'You…you look terrible.'  
Otto blinked at her. She nodded towards a mirror on the wall by the door.  
He looked.  
She had a point, he had to admit. He probably hadn't looked particularly healthy at the time of their last meeting, but now, after five days of no daylight, food, or sleep, the cadaverish look had well and truly set in. His skin was the colour of something found under a rock, and the shadows around his eyes would have prompted a 'Jeee-_sus,_ buddy…' from even the most chronic of insomniacs.  
'I've been busy.' he said. Escher didn't say anything, but her look of horrified sympathy was enough to make him search for a change of topic. He found it in the small plastic bottle that was sitting innocently on her bedside table. An arm snapped out, examining it closely.  
'"Scyllazine"? What's that for?'  
She shrugged. 'It's supposed to help me sleep. They all think I'm nuts because I haven't cracked up yet. Though if you ask me, I'd say you look like _you_ need it more than I do.'  
Otto ignored her. The smart arms were still scanning the room, taking in all the new details with interest. One of them arched past Escher's shoulder, its head opening to study the blank screen of her elderly PC. She drew in a little, but her eyes were curious.  
'What's with the pick-n-mix look on this one?' she asked, as the tentacle swung around to regard her. It was the mended one, where the bright new sections had not yet dulled enough blend in with the scarred, corroded surfaces of the older segments.  
He shrugged, lacking the energy or the words to tell her about the night he'd been forced to spend in his old home. The strangeness of the present situation was not lost on him. _Tomorrow night we intend to commit cold-blooded murder in front of hundreds of witnesses. Tonight, I'm standing in a teenage girl's bedroom trying not to drip rainwater on the carpet._  
'I was…um, I mean, I've been worried about you.' said Escher, picking at the hem of her t-shirt. For the second time, Otto found himself at a loss for words. Here, in the protected, promising world she belonged to, she had even less conceivable reason to concern herself with his well-being than she had had before, when she had so bafflingly chosen to believe his word over that of the entire city. What could she possibly see in him that made her even think of trusting him, let alone worrying about him? Certainly, it was nothing he could see himself.  
'Escher, I-' he began.  
_Click._  
Footsteps, startlingly loud, in the direction of the distant front hall.  
_'Honey, are you still up?'_  
Escher's face suddenly became a rictus of panic. 'It's my mom!' she hissed. _'Hide!'_  
Otto stared at her. Around him, his smart arms rose in agitation, their massive lengths brushing the walls and ceiling as he asked the inevitable question.  
_'HOW??'_  
Desperately, Escher stuck her head into the hallway. 'I'll be right there!' she yelled, then turned back into the room, barely in time to see a retracting claw withdrawing through the window.  
'Wait!'  
She raced to the window, stopping short as another streak of lightning ripped the darkness. Doctor Octavius was standing balanced on the balcony rail, steadied by the tentacles that curved around his back to grip the metalwork. His tattered trenchcoat fluttered around him, the slit lengths lifting like ragged wings as he touched his forehead in a silent salute, then dropped backwards into the drenching void.  
Escher stood in the square of light that spilled from her room, breathless, bewildered, and angry. Rain plastered her fringe to her forehead as the slippery tiles beneath her feet shuddered with the fading treads that marked her visitor's journey towards the ground. She gritted her teeth, small fists balling in frustration. She had been so close, she _knew _it. The right words had so nearly been there. So near, and yet so unfairly, stupidly, far.  
'Aghhhhhh…_damn.'_  
She stomped back inside her bedroom, pulling the windows shut with a rattling _whump. _As she did so, something rustled under her foot. Glancing down, she saw that it was the torn envelope that Doctor Octavius had used to keep her sketchbook safe and dry. It was still spotted and damp to the touch as she picked it up, turning it over in her hands.  
And there, in faded sepia-tone ink just under the crumpled flap, a small miracle.

_Elysium Cannery Ltd.  
Wharf 21 29b, West St. Dst.  
WM NYC_

Escher folded the envelope carefully in half, and smiled.

_well I hope y'all enjoyed the biology lesson. i certainly learned a lot today, mom. and now i'm going to go to the late-night store, cuz i skipped dinner and my neuropeptides are making me feel sick. fzzzt.  
dodgy science mainly courtesy of my head and the national geographic, vol.187, no.6, june 1995.  
hee hee I managed to get hold of an official press pack CD for spidey2 taps nose sooo many sound clips, and the trailer twitches  
thanks everyone for being patient and sticking with it so far, even with the waits. I 'preciate it._


	11. Lock And Load

_nearly there now.  
i learned this site doesn't seem to take links, which explains the holes in my explanation last time. the only way i can think of to give the link to the 'front cover' of this fic is to say that the name of my deviantart account is halley42 , and the thing is in my gallery. snuffle. but yeah thanks to the people who found it and reeviewed, and everyone who reviewed THIS thus far. glomp.  
that gleam up ahead is the light at the end of the tunnel, friends. and yes, i think it may be a flamethrower._

**Part Eleven- Lock And Load**

The morning of Tuesday the 29th of July dawned bright and clear over New York City, a dazzling sun in a clear blue sky burning away the early smog and turning the soaked streets a liquid gold. Small-scale cleanup operations started to grind into action as the sun rose higher, as city maintainance crews worked to remove the trees wrecked by the high winds and disperse the minature lakes that had sprung up wherever the beleagured storm drains had decided enough was enough. On this radiant morning, the state of the rain-scoured streets and buildings reflected the city as a whole; slightly battered, but beautiful.  
On the roof of the derelict Elysium Cannery warehouse, the slippery cast-iron shingles shone like fresh-caught fish scales beneath Otto's feet. He stood on the gentle peak of the vent stack, watching the sun rise on the last morning he ever intended to see as a flawed, feeling human mind.  
Hovering at his back, as unobtrusive as they knew how to be, his smart arms allowed him the moment without interruption. They were content to indulge their creator's final desires, no matter how unproductive they appeared- feeling the resolve in his mind, the artificial intelligence understood that to let him have his sunrise would not risk jeapordizing the bitter determination that drove him. Against such deep-rooted, long-nurtured bile, even the glorious sun stood no chance.  
Sure enough, after about half an hour, Otto abruptly turned his back on the eastern horizon, picking his way carefully along the rickety spine of the warehouse roof. Stretching before him, a long double-tinged shadow trembled across the slimy shingles, growing and warping with the languid stretch of his tentacles around his sides. With a series of low _whirrp_ sounds, the heads rose and flexed their articulated digits, the heart lights barely visible in the strong daylight. The two lower claws reached out, feeling for the edges of the ragged hole where a large section of tiles had fallen through to the distant warehouse floor, making a gaping entrance. Grasping the few rafters that were still strong enough to take their weight, the smart arms drew their host down through the splintered opening and into the semi-darkness below.  
Finding purchase on a couple of the shattered pillars, the arms dropped Otto claw-over-claw into the bright splash of sunlight that slanted from the hole overhead. From this angle, the roof entrance resembled a mouth full of broken teeth, framing a square of cloudless blue sky.  
**We must initiate the trial run. **  
The soft prompting of the whispers in his head clambered through his thoughts, urging him out of the pool of light and towards the alcove. Approaching the desk, he shrugged his trenchcoat from his shoulders, exposing the tapering ridges of the neural interface column that traced the contour of his spine. Each of the thirteen sculpted ridges were flanked by a pair of dull silver discs, skin-contact pads through which brassy electrode mountings protruded like the heads of industrial acupuncture needles. And, at the very top of the column, above a final segment barely an inch wide, a tiny mess of charred circuitry. Before the accident, this charred relic had been the last barrier between the higher processes of his mind and the insinuating intelligence of his 'assistants.' He had designed it to be fail-safe, though in hindsight he knew that he had undertaken this vital precaution in a spirit of breezy arrogance. Even though he had made the smart arms with his own hands, working for months on every aspect of their incredible advanced A.I, he had _still_ managed to utterly underestimate them. Capable servants, nothing more. _Just think of the practical applications! Surgeons will be able to perform operations completely unaided! No scientist will ever have to risk their lives to handle volatile chemical or radioactive materials ever again!_  
Noble intentions. Or, as Otto now regarded it, self-inflated stupidity on a inter-continental scale.  
A claw extended to the stand which held the completed goggles, fine pincers lifting them carefully. Another two curled in on themselves behind his back, clicking rapidly to themselves while they probed the remains of the inhibitor chip, filleting the blackened silicon and metal to reveal the complex socket beneath.  
**The integrity of the interface connector is uncompromised.**  
_Now?_ Otto thought, taking the goggles as they were proffered. The silvery face of the Mindmap chip was still exposed, a sleek grey shape set neatly between the two thick, round lenses.  
**Now.** The scene before his eyes turned to tinted shadows, a murky shadeworld dimmed by the heavy glass. He slipped the band around behind his ears, fingers snagging on his matted hair, feeling the elasticated polymer cloth tighten as he let it go. Behind him, a claw caught the length of articulated metal that was connected at one end to the hundreds of circuits that ran through the band, guiding the pins of the other end into the socket which had once housed the ill-fated inhibitor chip. With a fullisade of tiny slotting chirps, the two parts drew themselves together, sending signal relays surging along new paths within the smart arm's central processors as they scanned and accepted the new hardware.  
**It's working, Otto.** Their tone encouraging, the tentacles snaked into his shaded vision, all four heads opening to their fullest extent. Drawing the high collar of his coat back up over the new connection, Otto looked into their gleaming camera eyes and fancied he could see a glint of eager anticipation, the recognition that their part in this operation was over. It was his turn.  
**Proceed.**  
Otto reached up, feeling with both hands for the sliver studs in the sidepieces above his temples. They resembled the discs that climbed in pairs up the length of his spine, complete with the hairfine electrodes at the centre. These were retracted, projecting from the stud like inch-long cat whiskers, the pinshanks at their tips looking clumsy in comparison.  
For a moment, he hesitated, the enormity of what he was about to do feeling like a crushing weight on his shoulders. The burden was only made bearable by the thought that in a few moments, there wouldn't be anything in his being that felt like _anything._ Faced with the task of deliberately obliterating his own personality, he felt as if he had a responsibility urge to say something, some short eulogy, a few words bidding farewell to the man he had been.

'The hell with it.' Otto muttered, and thumbed the studs.

For a moment, nothing happened. Then, the heavy shanks hissed, contracting with an electrohydraulic pulse that sent the electrodes slipping inwards, firing through hair and skin and bone, worming indetectably into his brain. A flicker of pain narrowed the eyes behind the goggle lenses, but the next instant it was wiped as the Mindmap chip finished its first exploratory scan and started to send information to the rest of the goggle's circuits. The smart arms turned their heads inwards, casting an expectant scarlet spotlight.  
An observer would have been startled by the way that the figure that they illuminated straightened, shedding the depressive slump and gaining inches in the process.  
To say that the features that were still visible behind the large goggles went blank at this point would have been the understatement of the year. All expression simply fell away, leaving a neutral emptiness which contained nothing in the way of malice but still looked terrifyingly wrong on a human face.  
The figure turned its head slowly, and there was a new quality to the movement, as if an all-encompassing force was guiding it second by second. Lifting open hands up before its eyes, it turned them back and forth, regarding them as if it had never seen them before.  
When it spoke, the voice echoed with harsh unnatural resonances, a featureless monotone with an eerie metallic edge.  
**_'Stage one...successful.'_**said Doctor Octopus.

The photograph couldn't have been clearer. Three by two inches, it showed a smiling young man standing against a mottled wall, the sort of swirly ephemeral backdrop used by commercial photography studios. No-one knows why this was invented, because the effect is always that the client is standing in some sort of insubstantial other dimension, a dread realm made largely of greyish purple.  
At least this particular young man looked happy about it. It was a bit of a shame that his mint green graduation robes fought so violently with the background, and he probably could have straightened his mortarboard a fraction, but the grin on his bespectacled face was enthusiastic enough to distract the viewer's eye from these petty details. Overall, it was a good photo, and in a fair world it would be safely framed and placed carefully on some elderly relative's mantlepiece, possibly in the vicinity of a couple of cute fake-fur kitten ornaments, or, failing that, a china Bambi. Not, as its current situation had it, pinned crookedly to a hotel room wall, and about to suffer far worse.  
_sssssss_THWOK  
The short, straight-edged blade of the throwing knife trembled in the plaster, embedded an inch deep through the direct centre of the young man's diploma. Stepping up from her stance at the far end of the room, Spring tugged it out, then paced back and flipped the knife in readiness for an overarm throw, her eyes fixing intently on the bridge of the young man's glasses-  
'Spring?'  
Murphy stuck his head around the bathroom door. He was wearing a loose black sweater, over which a shoulder belt hung emptily, unfixed and untightened.  
'Schaf says the lobby's still way too full, so we're gonna have to get kitted up once we're in position. We're going in five.' He spotted the photo, and his eyebrows shot up. 'Hey! Quit it! We need that to I.D at the scene!'  
_'I_ don't.' said Spring, taking a thick roll of soft black suede from the bedside table. Flicking her hair back as she leant over, she spread the roll out across the bed. Tucked into the protective cloth bands, edged weapons of every description gleamed in the muted hotel room light. 'I'd know the guy anywhere.'  
'Yeah, well, we don't all have your smart-ass photographic memory shit.' snapped Murphy, and tugged the photo sharply from the wall. The tack pinged across the room, just as Schafer appeared in the opposite doorway. Her hand blurred.  
'What the hell is this?' she said. holding the tack between finger and thumb. Murphy turned, and laughed.  
'Just trying to keep you in practice, baby.'  
'Like we're going to need it.' said Spring. She had eventually been convinced by her brother's arguments, but she was still nursing the irritation that came with her belief that the hit was beneath them. 'I mean, look at the kid. What are we going to do, just walk up behind him and make a loud noise? 'Cause that's about all it's gonna take.'  
Schafer shrugged. She was busy untangling two lengths of stiff ribbon cloth, winding them rapidly around her palms in a boxer's weave. She, too, was wearing a baggy black sweater, though she had passed on the combat pants that her boyfriend preferred in favour of black dance leggings and chunky, air-soled boots, courtesy of Dr. Marten.  
'Think about it, Spring. Osborn's so scared of this guy that he hired us to take him out. What does that tell you?'  
'Umm, that he's a wimp with more money than sense?'  
'No. Well…maybe. But what it _really_ means is that there's a catch. And whatever it is…' Schafer finished binding her hands, squared up, and struck the nearest wall with one flat palm. A fine cloud of plaster dust drifted in the room's air-conditioned breeze, settling in the large new dent created by her blow.  
'…we'll be ready.'  
A polite knock on the suite's front door wiped the satisfied grin from her face. Swiftly, she slipped into the shadow behind the bathroom door, as behind her Spring dropped into a crouch with the throwing knife still poised in her hand. Cautiously, Murphy edged past them, backing up against the front door.  
'Yeah?' he yelled.  
Outside in the corridor, the concierge shifted from one foot to another in front of the closed door. He would have been happier not being there at all; the current residents of the V.I.P suite were getting rather a reputation among the hotel staff. Only that morning, a chambermaid had been sent home in hysterics because she had gone in to replace the towels and come face to face with a tall blonde woman who, in the maid's own incoherent, sob-punctated words; "just, just, _looked_ at me! Like, like I was, I, uh, I don't know, I don't know, I,_ I want to go home!!!'_  
'You asked me to call a cab, sir? It's arrived.' said the concierge gingerly.  
The door opened a crack, revealing a lot of black cloth, shaggy blond hair, and a grin. Any further details were lost on the concierge, who at that moment suffered from an acute attack of blindness brought on by an overdose of money.  
'Thanks.' said Murphy, and shut the door, leaving the man staring down at the hundred dollar bill in his hand.  
Inside the room, Schafer shifted a large gym bag onto the bed, and started to lace up her boots. Pulling a tight black t-shirt over her head, Spring swept a contemplative hand over her array of weapons, finally selecting three more six-inch throwing blades, two antique but well-honed scissor katars, and a long-handled deer knife. These she wrapped in chamois leather and dropped into the bag, along with a bottle of oil and an extra cloth.  
'Murph, don't forget your silencer again.' she said, as her brother rummaged in a suitcase on the floor. 'We don't want another Munich.'  
'M on mmph.' said Murphy, around the telescopic sight which, having run out of hands, he'd placed in his mouth. 'I'm on it.' Standing up, he dumped his chosen arsenal for the evening into the bag- two light Benelli MP90 pistols, one of the pair extended by the long tube of a high-grade silencer, and a hefty old Galil SAR handgun.  
Schafer tutted, pulling her cataract of ebony hair tightly into a series of coiling bands behind her back. 'Do you really have to drag that dumb thing along again? It weighs a ton, it pulls to the left, and it sounds like the end of the 1812.'  
'You say that every time.' Murphy piled three boxes of bullets into a pyramid and stuffed them into the bag's side pocket. 'Face it, Schaf, you just don't like what you can't explain.'  
'I can explain fine.' sniffed Schafer. 'My Lame-Brained Man Is In Love With His Gun. We should be on Oprah.'  
'I've never missed with her.' said Murphy. Ignoring his girlfriend, he hefted the Galil in one hand, cocking his head to squint through its heavy sights. 'Not one goddamn time.'  
'If you three are quite done.' said Spring, acidly, on her way past with an armful of communication headsets. 'The cab won't wait around forever.'  
Murphy held his lucky gun out, smirking. With a final glare, Schafer grabbed it from him and stuck it in the bag, heaving the whole lot off the bed with a strength that belied her small build. Murphy grinned.  
'Let's go.'

From the ground, gaining access to the Elysium Cannery warehouse was full of problems. The entire area was ringed by a tall chain-link fence, creating a sprawling compound of tumbledown outbuildings around the main building. The fence was a good ten feet tall, and topped with rusting barbed wire, and even though Elysium Ltd. had gone out of business some ten years before (an unpleasant affair concerning a batch of tinned baby food and an inexplicable amount of broken glass) there was still a large padlock on the main gate. Sure, if you were an adult with a maximum reach of thirteen feet and the ability to tear through steel like it was wool, it was a walk in the park, but for a small fourteen-year-old with a bike and mild hayfever it was another matter entirely.  
Escher gave up trying to climb the fence on the eastern side and circled back round to the front. Behind her, the remains of other factory yards stretched down to the empty man-made banks of the Hudson, pavement and packed dirt petering out into flotsam-strewn concrete. The warehouse was hemmed in on all other sides by a rickety series of open fences and another packing place, smaller but similarly deserted. Even in the bright late-afternoon sunlight, the whole place had a desolate, ghost-town feel, only with eddies of paper scraps and plastic wrappers instead of balls of sagebrush. Chaining her bike to the fence by the gate, Escher tried humming under her breath to dispell the unease, but stopped abruptly when she realised that she was humming the theme from _Deliverance._  
There was a a small hole in the chain-links by the gate. Escher had dismissed it as too small at first sight, but after another fruitless circle necessity drove her to try and squeeze through. After a breathless few minutes, she had managed to get her head and shoulders into the gap, after which there was a minor catastrophe when the loops on her the waistband of her jeans got hooked on the wire. Trying not to imagine how utterly stupid she must look, or what would happen if she just got permanently stuck halfway, she breathed in and wriggled back.  
_Little, tiny, thin thoughts. Worms. Liquorice. Shoelaces._  
Scooting forwards on her elbows, she felt herself come loose, sliding the rest of the way into the compound like a snake leaving its burrow. Panting, dusty, and strangely exhillarated, she stood up and looked around.  
Among the haphazard shapes of the outbuildings, crude machines that had once been used for sorting cargo stood like the iron-boned skeletons of extinct monsters. The weed-choked earth was strewn with parts and lengths of piping. It was like the biggest, most deadly jungle gym in the world.  
And, over _there,_ the main door…  
It was easily four times her height, the wood reinforced by rows of rivets, but it creaked when she heaved against it with all her strength and moved a few inches inwards. A familliar odour of gym bags and mildew assailed her from the dark gap, but Escher frowned and backed off involuntarily as she caught another scent, alien and much stronger. She tried to place it.  
A couple of years ago, during a rainy, boring weekend, Escher had tried to take her brother's Speak 'n Spell apart to see how it worked. With the thinnest screwdriver she could find, she had unscrewed the back and stuck the tool (with great care and imaginative precision) deep into the tangle of wiring. The shock had travelled up the shank and up her arm, knocking her to the floor before the toy had shorted out, spitting and sparking. The smell it had made was the one she could sense now - the hot hazy danger scent of electricity gone bad.  
She edged through the warehouse door, straining to see in the gloom. She felt a flash of triumph when she saw the cluttered alcove on the other side of the floor, relieved that she had found the right building after all- but this was quickly overriden by a stab of fright as a dull _thump_ shook dust from the distant roof. She spun around, and saw that the heavy door had swung shut behind her.  
'Eee.' she said, almost inaudibly. She didn't like the atmosphere in this cavernous space; a thoroughly disturbing feeling that it was empty and not empty at the same time. There was an expectant hush in the fusty air, as if everything was primed for_ something_ to happen. Whatever this was, Escher had a premonition that she wasn't going to enjoy it when it did.  
'Doctor Octavius?' she called, walking across the boards to the centre of the floor. Her voice bounced back at her from the grimy walls, shaky and small. She tried again, louder.  
'Doctor Octavius! It's me! Escher! Are you in here?'  
_Tik_  
A tiny chunk of crumbling plaster hit the wood just by her left trainer, scattering like a dropped snowball. Escher looked up, and her world filled with blinding scarlet light. Before she even had time to register, instinct took over and sent her diving for the ground.  
This action saved her life.  
_SSSSSSSSSSHHHHH-_KRRKKK  
The claw blurred down from the rafters, striking the floor inches from Escher's head and filling the air with grit and wood splinters. For a moment, all she could do was stare at the long, jagged clawblade that was embedded in the boards where she had been standing a second before. Then sheer terror galvanised her limbs, jerking her upright and throwing her into a stumbling sprint towards the only cover she could see.  
Behind her, the thing that for the sake of convenience we shall call Doctor Octopus dropped out of the tangle of rafters, free-falling, the arms snapping around mid-fall to propel themselves into a 'run' of incredible speed. The claws opened, shaking the floor and gouging deep lines out of the flimsy floorboards. Escher's target, the heavy metal gantry in the corner, seemed to her at an impossible distance, and she screamed and ducked as another claw sang overhead, sharp little manipulators catching in her hair.  
By some miracle, the gantry neared. For the second time, she hurled herself headlong to the floor, rolling under the blackened metal shelf and tucking as far back against the wall as was possible. A deafening _clannnnng_ vibrated the metal above her head, the vague imprint of the claw that had hit it stamping into the tarnished surface in front of her eyes. Then there was silence.  
Escher lay still, her back to the wall, breathing in a series of shallow huffs. The gantry was deep, but she remembered the reach of those arms and calculated that they could reach to the wall at least twice over. Through the gap, she could see the door she had used, some twenty yards away. For all the use it was to her now, it might as well have been on Pluto.  
With a waspish rattle, a tentacle snaked into view from above the gantry. The claw head opened, the sections folding back like the petals of a flower, so close that she could see the minature flickers in the heart of the camera eye as it adjusted focus. It was barely a metre from her face, and she could hear every one of the tiny _skreeks_ it made as the articulated parts moved against each other.  
She shifted carefully to the left. It followed. She waved her arm to the right. It followed that too. Escher was strongly reminded of a cat 'playing' with a trapped mouse, except that she got the definite impression that the arm wasn't tracking her for fun; it was merely holding back until it could predict exactly what she was about to do. To test the theory, she moved a shaking hand towards the claw. It pulled back a little, and continued to watch.  
'Why are you doing this?' she said, desperately. 'I just wanted to talk to you!'  
The voice, when it came from overhead, was so unexpected and terrible that she had to bite her tongue to keep from screaming again.  
**_'Talk?'_**  
The claw tensed, bunched back.  
**_'Worthless.'_**  
Escher was already moving by the time the arm struck, which meant that instead of breaking her neck the spread metal digits bit into the cloth of her jacket hood, pinning it against the wall with enough force to completely splinter the tinder-dry beams that skirted the wall. Trying to wriggle loose, she felt a heavy length under her palm, and gripped it instinctively. Then the arm jerked back out from under the gantry, and she went with it.  
It lifted her in a long, fast arc, pincering her jacket hood, and would have hurled her right across the room if her arms hadn't have chosen that moment to finally come out of the sleeves. She fell ten feet and landed badly, white-hot fire shooting through her knees. Looking down, she realised that the thing she had grabbed under the gantry was in fact a smashed plank from the wall skirting, seventy centimetres or so of mouldering wood. She hefted it experimentally; a large and very confused wood-boring beetle crawled out of the grain by her hand and dropped onto her shoe.  
With an impact that rattled Escher's teeth, Doctor Octopus six-point-landed on the floor in front of her. She stared in horror at the serene expression, the dead black lenses that masked dead blank eyes. And that voice, that cold unnatural utterance that sounded so wrong coming from a human mouth...  
The arms were playing the movement game again, all four of them this time, the heads opening to bathe her in their red glare. The figure's head turned slightly, following her careful sidestep in the same tracking manner. She saw that the cavity in the goggle's bridge had been filled by an upright oblong of bright metal, and shuddered as she spotted the depressed stud in the band behind one ear. That was all the detail she could note before one of the heads snapped shut, decisively. She could only watch, staring wide-eyed as it flexed upwards like a rearing cobra…

Escher had been banned from her local Little League team about two months after signing up, some two years previously. She had been kicked out, quite unfairly in her view, for damages sustained to one soft-wood bat and also to the front teeth of a boy named Joey McCormick, who had unwisely decided that there was endless comedic potential in her brace and freckles. It was probably just as well, since although Escher's hand-eye skills were fine, there was something about a sunny field full of yelling people that made her brain shut down completely, making her incapable of the simplest of tasks, such as remembering what team she was on.  
However, this same brain had its own sense of self-preservation, and it had no wish to be inside of a skull that was spread across the dusty floorboards. Faced with three hundred pounds or so of perfectly co-ordinated death, it did a couple of quick sums, relayed the answers to the more important muscles, and then went and hid. The upshot of which was that, as the arm lunged, Escher threw herself backwards, rolled, and came up swinging.  
_THWACK_  
The plank connected solidly with the back of her attacker's skull, just above where the neural interface tube arched from the band of the goggles. It was debatable whether the blow itself was even noticed, but as the figure's head snapped forwards with the impact something silvery flashed from the bridge of the goggles and struck Escher in the chest. Reflexively, she caught it.  
Doctor Octopus turned, seeking the elusive target, tentacles arching with singleminded strength…  
…and Otto blinked.  
Escher stood transfixed, both hands still clasped to her chest. The smart arm which, seconds ago, had been trying to snap her neck, now regarded her with a confused dipping movement and closed its head. The others followed suit, retracting a little and curving in towards the body of their host, who seemed utterly shellshocked.  
'Doctor Octavius?' she said, carefully.  
'…Escher?' Slow recognition crumpled his brow, quickly replaced by anger. He backed away from her, the smart arms rising again while they recovered from their disorientation. His fingers found the studs, and he gasped as the electrodes drew themselves out of his skull, a shaking palm pushing the goggles up over his hairline so they rested on his forehead. The eyes they revealed were anything but blank, in fact they were absolutely furious.  
'You stupid girl!' he yelled. 'We nearly killed you!'  
'Oh, yeah, I'm fine, thanks!' Escher was discovering that there's nothing like a near-death experience to bring on the rage. 'What the hell are you _doing?_ I came all the way over here to try and talk to you, and instead I get Mister Terminator trying to tear me to shreds! What did I ever do to you to deserve that??!'  
Otto was busy feeling the back of his head, where a not insubstantial amount of pain seemed to be happening. 'Something…hit me?'  
'Yes, that would have been me! I thought it might be preferable to getting my brain splattered across the walls!'  
He wasn't listening, cradling his forehead in both hands, trying to replay his scattered memory. 'It…it was working…but…what happened?' The arms let out an urgent sussuration, swinging towards Escher, who backed off warily. Slowly, Otto lifted his head, until he was staring right at her cupped hands. Escher followed his gaze, and opened them.  
The Mindmap chip lay on her palm, a small sharp-edged glow against her skin. She looked up at him, at the dark gap in the bridge of his goggles, and grinned faintly, guiltily.  
'You, uh, might want to put some duct tape across that next time.'  
For what seemed like a couple of eternities, nothing moved. Then Otto stepped towards her, hand outstretched.  
'Give it to me.'  
Escher's eyes widened. 'Are you crazy? Do you think _I'm_ crazy? At least give me a running start this time!'  
He shook his head, impatiently. 'I won't put it in, I promise. Just give it here.'  
**Why ask? We can simply take it.**  
_Shut up._ he thought, sharply. To Escher he said; 'Please.'  
Escher bit her lip. On the one hand, she was pretty sure that no good would come of giving the chip back. However, to refuse would be totally out of keeping with what she had set out to do in the first place, quite apart from being probably suicidal. And there was something else, too…his voice when he had yelled at her. It had been angry, yes, but there had also been an undercurrent of fear. Fear, Escher guessed, of what he might have done.  
So she made up her mind, and held out the chip. He took it, gingerly, between finger and thumb, and passed it up to his upper left tentacle.  
'Thank you.'  
Then he turned and walked off, somewhat hesitantly, to the desk. His voice reached back to where she stood, and his tone was once again composed and resigned.  
'Now, do you mind if I ask_ how_ you found…actually, never mind that. Why are you here, and what do I have to do to get you to leave?'  
Escher rubbed a graze on her arm. The adrenalin was wearing off, leaving her irritable. 'After that little stunt?' she said, making no effort to keep the chagrin from her voice. 'Nothing!'  
At the desk, Otto sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. A claw reached down and slipped the goggles from his head, placing them back on their stand, while the upper left fitted the precious Mindmap chip back into the socket between the lenses. He watched it work on the connections, trying to think. He had a massive headache, a side-effect he had not foreseen, and his memory of the last few hours was patchy at best. All he could remember, for the most part, was a calming sense of being completely certain about everything, locked in an impervious bubble through which the world was as simple and easy to manipulate as a grid of squared graph paper. Now the certainty was gone, and the messy greyness of his feelings returned, hitting him with a crushing severity that only the most pathological of drug addicts would have been able to relate to. He slipped his hands into the pockets of his coat, trying to conceal their shaking.  
'I'm sorry if we…frightened you.' he said.  
Escher was about to reply with something along the lines of _'"IF??"'_, but she recognised that this was too good an opening to pass up.  
'Well, I'm sorry I broke your thing.' she said. 'Especially if it was working.'  
'Oh, it's not broken.' A claw rummaged through the clutter on the desktop and came up with something that looked like a small black metal square, complete with a dull, rounded protrusion at its centre. 'We simply neglected to fit the cover.'  
'Lucky me.' said Escher, picking her way over the floor towards him. Trying to marshal her thoughts, she stared for a while at the bright theatre poster behind the desk, before deciding to launch into her intended speech. 'Listen, um, Doctor Octavius, I came here because, um, I wanted to tell you something important…'  
He turned. Looking up into his shadow-ringed eyes, she wished that she had taken the time to work out what she intended to say, possibly with a pad of paper and a thesaurus. Praying for inspiration, or at least coherence, she ploughed ahead.  
'…I wanted to say that I don't care what anyone else thinks about you, or what you think about yourself…I don't think you're a bad guy. In, um, any sense. Like, a bad guy or a supervillain or whatever, but also like, well, a bad…guy.' She paused for breath, and stumbled on.  
'And I bet that if all these people who've been believing the stuff the _Bugle_'s been writing about you could talk to you like I did, and if they heard your, uh, your side, I bet _they_ wouldn't think so either. It's like I said, you saved the city. It doesn't matter what happened or what people said afterwards…they can't take that away from you. And you didn't like it when your arms killed that rat, and you gave me my sketchbook back, and that's _twice_ you've apologized to me now when you didn't have to. I don't know what you're planning on doing with those,' and she waved a hand in the direction of the goggles, 'but you don't need it. Really. You're not a monster, and you don't have to make yourself into one, either.'  
She looked down at her shoes.  
'I, uh, I think there was some more, but I forgot it. Sorry.'  
It was a while before she could work up the courage to lift her head again, but when she did it was to see Doctor Octavius regarding her intently, an unfathomable look in his eyes. Even the smart arms seemed to be watching her with fascination, their heads open by the merest fraction, their heart lights subdued.  
'You're a…singular young lady, Escher.' he said, finally. 'You certainly see further than most. I hope…so much as I set any store by 'hope'…that the things that happened to me never happen to you.'  
Escher thought about this. 'I'd say that's kind of really unlikely.' she said, eyeing the stirring arms.  
'You know what I mean.' said Otto, wearily. A claw pulled the chair out from under the desk, and he slumped into it, massaging his stinging temples with his fingertips. 'As for what I'm planning, if Spiderman-'  
'Oh, yeah, and that's another thing!' said Escher, hurriedly. 'You know that Parker guy that takes pictures of Spiderman? Well, he told me that what you said-'  
Very, very slowly, Otto raised his head from his hands.  
'Parker.'  
'Yeah, he told me that what you said was-'  
'You told…Peter Parker…what I said.'  
'Well, yes, I sort of told him about you, ish. Um.' Escher was starting to get the feeling that she had maybe made a slight tactical error. It was the look she was getting from him that was the giveaway. Homicide burnt in Otto's eyes.  
'You told…Peter Parker…_about me.'_  
'He's just a photographer!' protested Escher. 'He's no-one _important!_ Anyway, he swore he wouldn't tell anyone else!'  
Otto stared at her. In the withdrawal-racked fog of his mind, the smart arm A.I was making several attractive propositions, mostly concerning immediate, untidy termination. He opened his mouth.  
'And he said,' continued Escher, who metaphorically speaking had never quite learned when to let go of the shovel, 'that the truth doesn't sell papers anymore.'  
'Oh, he did, did he?' snarled Otto. 'Well, I suppose he's right! I'm sure that pictures of _his friend Spiderman_ wouldn't make so much money if people found out that he's not quite the perfect hero that they thought!'  
'He didn't mean that.' mumbled Escher, but it was too late. Surfing on the waves of backlogged resentment, Otto had ears only for the calm goading of the voices in his head.  
'Yes…' he said, apropos of nothing. 'No, nothing's changed. We'll still do it…and why wait? The sooner we arrive, the better…'  
'Hello?' Escher waved a hand as close as she dared to his face. 'Remember me? Please, uh, stop doing that. It's really creepy.'_ Like Norman Bates creepy._  
He looked at her, and to her dismay she saw that the deadness was back, like a blind had been locked down behind his eyes. The tentacles twitched, the lights gathering brightness as they rose.  
'I think you should go.' he said. 'I've got things to do…you wouldn't be safe here. Go on, while it's still light.'  
'Hey, wait a minute!' Escher wasn't going to give up so easily. 'Can't I watch or something? I promise not to get in the way.'  
'Like you promised not to tell anyone about me?' said Otto, caustically. 'Leave, Escher. Don't make me make you.'  
Fighting a rising tide of hopelessness, Escher made a final attempt to get through. 'It's not too late, Doctor Octavius.' she said, fervently. 'You don't have to use those goggles again. Please think about it. You can still do the right thing.'  
'"The right thing"!' Otto stood up, the smart arm heads snapping open in agitation. 'There's that intolerable, meaningless phrase again!' He shook his head, as if trying to dislodge the stupidity of the words from his mind, and turned his back on her. 'You had better learn, girl, that in this world no-one cares if something's "right" or "wrong", so long as it turns some kind of profit! I can't think of one single person who would even have the slightest interest in whether what _I_ do is 'the right thing' or not!'  
When considering what Escher said next, it is important to remember that she was angry, tired, and frustrated, and had also not quite recovered yet from nearly being killed, an experience she wasn't accustomed to. And in her defence, she regretted the words as soon as they left her mouth, and in fact went as far as to clap her hands over it. Unfortunately, by then the damage was done.  
'I bet your wife w-'  
Afterwards, she would reflect that she would have infinitely preferred it if he had yelled, or even tried to kill her again. The smart arms should have extended, hissing, radiating outrage from each scarlet-lit claw.  
He should have at least turned around.  
Instead, the arms simply stayed where they were, arrayed around him with their heads half-open, almost motionless. The only visible sign that he'd heard her was a stiffening in his back, a sudden tensing of his shoulders beneath the high collar that hid his face. And then, after an age, during which she became convinced that her own heartbeat was as loud as a volley of gunshots in the silence, he spoke.  
_'Get out.'_  
'I didn't-'  
_'Now.'_  
Escher fled.

_hypothetical exchange:  
me: dad, can you drive me to the library?  
dad: what do you want there?  
me: oh, i need books on guns. and neuroscience. but mostly guns. and knives. lots of 'em.  
(a pause)  
dad: daughter, couldn't you perhaps find something less violent to do with your sunday? like, i don't know, wrestling psychos for cash?_


	12. The Show Must Go On

_i'd like to apologize briefly for any odd spelling throughout this fic. trying to 'write in american' while at the same time hanging on to my ingrained brit rules gives me a headache. also whoo thanks again for all the gneeepy reviews, and those who added this fic to their favo…ou…o…ouo..uh, the fics they like. i'll send you all an invisible rulin' hat each.  
anyway, the last short chapter before the endgame. i was going to make everything one part, but i found i couldn't fit it together without one final break.  
loading data files…_

**Part Twelve- The Show Must Go On**

'Over there.'  
'Where?'  
'There, by that fence. I think it's a squirrel. That's three points to me.'  
'Like hell. That's a pigeon. One point.'  
Murphy made a supercillious noise in his throat, leaning back on the cab's faux-leather upholstery. 'Damn it, Sis, you are such a sore loser.'  
In the other window seat, Spring continued to stare intently through the glass. Her sharp grey eyes flicked across every kerb and gutter, searching for the next point. It was a long and boring cab ride across the darkening city to the Orpheus Theatre, and after the first ten or so minutes she and her brother had started to resort to little games to pass the time. Right now it was that old favourite, Roadkill I-Spy.  
'Save it, Murph. I'd be winning right now if you didn't keep making stuff up.'  
Her brother spread his hands in protest. 'I don't! I swear!'  
She turned a sceptical eye on him. 'An ocelot. In the middle of Manhattan.'  
'Maybe it'd got lost-'  
'Shut up, you two.' said Schafer, from the middle seat. She was hunched over the weighty gym bag on her lap, doing something intricate to the wiring of one of the headcoms. Strangely enough, although she was the least tidy (some might say least professional) out of all of them, when it came to actually doing the job she was always the edgiest, the most focused. She had barely spoken a word for the entire ride so far, letting her colleagues bicker over her bent head.  
In the front of the cab the driver turned the steering wheel to manouvre the car around another congested intersection. He wasn't listening to the muttered conversations in the back, and if these black-clad, serious-looking trio of customers with their heavy luggage were anything out of the ordinary for him, he wasn't about to show it. He didn't know them, and it was an absolute certainty that, from the moment they arrived at their destination and stepped out of his cab, he would continue to have never seen them before in his life. It was amazing, the amount of voluntary amnesia that could be bought for the right-sized tip.  
'Murph, you wanna tell us exactly how we're going to handle this?' Schafer put the headset down and pulled out a printed blueprint, showing a detailed layout of the Orpheus Theatre building. Spring leaned over behind her as Murphy pulled out a marker pen, suddenly all business.  
'Think Prague.' he said. 'It's basically the same setup. We don't have to worry about peripheries, no bodyguards, no counterteam. But there's gonna be plenty of neutrals, about five hundred people in the audience, plus staff. And somewhere _here…'_ the marker tapped the big block of seats in the centre of the ground-floor auditorium, 'is our guy. Friends and family first night seats, I'm guessing. That's not a problem, 'cause by the time he gets there we'll already have been in position for eighty minutes.'  
'Prague?' said Schafer. 'So you're planning on getting backstage and making the hit from long range? What're _we_ gonna do, sit around and play Go Fish?'  
'I need you standing by near the target to make sure nothing goes out of whack.' said Murphy, swiftly. 'You and Spring, your methods are both kind of…hard to miss. _We do not want to be identified,_ got it? Anyone spots us packing, we make goddamn sure they don't get the chance to pass it on.'  
'Got it.' said Spring, stifling a yawn. 'I take it Osborn wants the whole tragic accident deal, huh?'  
'Yup.' Murphy smirked. 'Can't blame the kid for wanting to keep his bloody hands behind his back. And that's exactly what's gonna give him to us.'  
'I sure hope you know what you're doing, Murph.' muttered Schafer. 'We don't want to get on the wrong side of something like OsCorp. Could make life hell.'  
'Don't worry, sweetheart, I've done my homework.' As the cab swung around a corner, Murphy leaned closer, compelling the girls to follow suit, until their heads were almost touching. 'From what I hear, Osborn's got a real guilt trip going since his daddy got himself killed a couple of years ago. The guy was some big-shot scientist, practically ran OsCorp singlehanded. Now Junior, our client, will do whatever it takes not to disgrace Pop's memory.'  
Murphy stretched out, rolling his neck muscles from side to side and leaning back once more. 'And after we finish this job, whatever it takes…is whatever we want.'  
The assassins smiled at each other.  
It was Spring who broke away from this pleasant mental image first, shaking the theatre map out so she could memorize it fully. 'So, our positions?' she said.  
'Well…let's just say you ladies are going to have to smarten yourselves up first.' her brother said. 'We're gonna stop off somewhere where we can get a couple of pretty jackets or whatever, something you can lose fast if you need to.' He flipped a couple of gilt-embossed card rectangles from a pocket of the bag.  
'I hope you like Shakespeare.'

It was nearly dark by the time Escher arrived back at the 72nd Street apartment block where she lived. She had covered the first few streets away from the warehouse district in record time, probably breaking several records (including that of Fastest-Panic-Fuelled-Combination-Remembering) but after ten or so minutes she had been forced to either stop or fall over, bike and all.  
If asked, the owner of the convenience store that stood on the corner of West 22nd and 10th would have probably been able to describe her in great detail. He probably didn't often get fourteen-year-old girls limping in alone so late in the evening, or leaning against the wall to one side of the automatic doors wheezing like a racehorse for several minutes, before buying four dollars and sixty-two cents worth of Oreos and pocky. Young teenagers of her type didn't tend to pay much attention to the newspaper stands, either, preferring the colourful magazines and comics over by the milk cooler to the multiple copies of the _Bugle_ that filled the rack by the door. They certainly didn't usually stand in front of the wire stand for quite so long, with such an unpleasant expression of frustrated disapproval, or suddenly turn and walk out with (the owner would have been ready to swear) the glimmer of angry tears gathering in their eyes.  
After this little interlude, Escher had cycled slowly home through the gathering twilight, barely noticing the passing streets. If both feet hadn't been occupied by the pedals, it was safe to assume that she would have been constantly kicking herself. Who knew how much worse she had made things now, just by trying to help?  
It wasn't _fair._  
She wheeled her bike into the lobby of Lyndstrom Heights, and was just in the process of waiting for the receptionist to show up so she could lock it into the safe room when someone tapped her on the shoulder. This was one more shock than her already fractured nerves could handle in one day.  
'AaAAaarghh!…Oh.'  
The young man who had come up behind her jumped, more than a bit rattled by her violent response. Escher backed off with one hand clamped to her chest, trying to persuade her heart to stay in her ribcage despite its efforts to the contrary. It was the guy who knew Spiderman, the photographer whose name Doctor Octavius had reacted so badly to.  
'Um…hi.' he said, gingerly. He was wearing a light grey sweater, and the remains of an enthusiastic grin which was now tinged by concern. 'Are you all right?'  
'I'm fine.' Inwardly, Escher winced. Even in her own ears, her voice had sounded about as convincing as that of someone standing on the 45-degree deck of the Titanic and yelling 'Everything's under control!' She tried again.  
'Sorry, I just…um, I'm kind of on edge. You startled me.'  
Peter gave her a searching look. Even without the obvious insincerity of her words, he didn't need genetically-amplified senses to work out that something was wrong. The girl looked exhausted and upset. She was red around the eyes, her shirt and jeans were dusty and disarrayed, and there were several long, bleeding scratches on her arms and hands. Then there was her posture. Peter was very sensitive to body language, and Escher's screamed _help me._ From the look in her eyes, she was overriding the impulse to voice this second by second.  
'What's that in your hair?' he said. Her hand flicked up guiltily, coming back with a long wooden splinter. She tossed it aside.  
'I, I, uh, fell off my bike.' she said, quickly.  
He tilted an incredulous head. 'Into a threshing machine?' Then, slowly; 'Wait, this doesn't have anything to do with-'  
'WHAT,' said Escher, urgently, 'are you doing here anyway? And what are those things?'  
Thrown, Peter looked down at the thick wedge of bright paper in his hand. 'Oh, these are just some flyers. Heard of the Orpheus Theatre?'  
'No.'  
'Well, my girlfriend's got a part in the play that opens tonight. A Midsummer Night's Dream. She's Hermia.' said Peter, proudly. 'Anyway, when I was here last time, I asked the receptionist if I could leave a pile of flyers, y'know, for people to take.'  
'And she said yes?' Escher was impressed. Sonja-on-the-desk was a gum-snapping harpy who would have probably charged for the time of day if she thought she could get away with it.  
'Yeah, so I just came by to drop them off. I'm in kind of a hurry, I got…held up…on the way here, and I have to take MJ to the theatre before I can go home and get ready myself.'  
'Well, don't let me keep you!' said Escher, with a plastic smile and rather more force than she intended. She really didn't want to be rude to Peter, who had been so understanding, but she could well imagine the reaction any adult would have to the idea that she had willingly walked back into danger after such a 'narrow escape'. Espacially since it had been such a disaster.  
And, of course, there was always the terrifying possibility that anything she told Peter Parker might just end up being relayed to her mom…  
He still looked worried. 'Are you _sure_ you're-'  
'Oh, look, there's Sonja! Hi, Sonja, I'm just going up, goodbye Mr. Parker, tell your girlfriend to break a leg or whatever, and don't worry about me, I'm fine, so 'bye!' She gave a lighting-fast grin and sprinted for the lift, and got nearly six metres before-  
'Escher!'  
Slowly, dreadingly, she turned. Peter was standing behind her, holding out a colourful paper rectangle. He must have moved with some speed to catch up so fast.  
'Have a flyer. It's sold out tonight, but it's running for about a month. I bet you'd enjoy it.' He gave her a last, doubtful look. 'It's a comedy…maybe it might help you relax a little.'  
He handed it to her. She took it, and as she looked up their eyes met for a second. Deep blue and mossy green, charged with hidden meanings.  
_Tell me.  
I can't._  
'Thanks.' said Escher, and turned away.

Memory is a fickle thing. There are theories that suggest that we remember every single detail we come across throughout our lives, and simply never learn the way to access most of this knowledge. That it all sits there, locked in the dusty storerooms of our minds, but most of the time we never really bother to summon it.  
If Escher had been informed of these ideas, she would probably have guessed, quite rightly, that the people who had come up with them clearly never had to take a high-school math examination. Great hypothetical storage rooms of facts and figures are all very well in theory, but in reality the eye of memory generally operates more like a shaky digital camera, grabbing odd bits of things as they pass before it. When put under the levels of stress that Escher had been subjected to recently, the result tends to be the kind of jumbled mess of clues that would make even Jessica Fletcher give up and throw her typewriter out of a window.  
As Escher rode the lift up to the ninth floor, her memory nagged at her like a sore tooth. Deep in thought, she let herself into her apartment, only to find a note on the hall table explaining that her mother was in Washington, her brother was in a daycare centre, and her chicken casserole was in the microwave. Crumpling the note in absentminded fingers, she walked through into the bathroom, found the medical kit, and started to clean the grazes on her arms.  
She was underwater when the revelation hit her. Having filled the sink, she had ducked to submerge her face in it and was just about to stand up again when two trains of thought, lumbering along the same track in the depths of her head, collided. Thunderstruck, she breathed in instead of out, which is never a good idea when your mouth and nose are surrounded by liquid.  
For the next minute or so, she was too occupied with coughing to do anything else. Then, grabbing a towel from the handrail, she leaned on the edge of the bath and tried to gather her thoughts. There were suddenly rather a lot of them, all crowding into the front of her mind in fragments, like clips of a jerky old film.  
_An upgrade…_  
_…we intend to teach this city a little lesson on the nature of truth._  
Reaching into her pocket, she pulled out the flyer, scanning it desperately. The design was simplified, compared to the poster she had glanced at on the wall behind Doctor Octavius's desk, but there was no mistaking the headache-inducing design.  
_You told…Peter Parker…about me.  
Peter Parker...  
His friend, Spiderman…  
_ Escher looked up. The bathroom mirror caught her wide-eyed reflection, the freckles livid across her cheeks as dawning horror drained them of colour.  
_We'll still do it…and why wait?_  
_I've got things to do…_  
She stared at the flyer, and a sound halfway between a squeak and a sob escaped her.  
_I've got…  
…things…  
…to do._  
Ten seconds later, the apartment's front door slammed shut. In the deserted hallway, a small, colourful piece of paper fluttered gently towards the ground.

Eight o'clock came and went, and the sidewalk outside the well-lit front of the Orpheus Theatre swelled with queueing, talking people. As the doors opened, groups and couples started to filter in towards the elegant lobby, chatting in sociable knots that reflected their status, aquaintances, and most importantly their class of ticket. The murmur of a dozen conversations carried upwards on the warm night air, a muted rustling of polite voices lifting as far as the flat rooftop of the opposite Shelley Hotel, some ten storeys above the theatre's low girder-spanned dome. A floodlight, strategically placed in the hotel's facade to illuminate the Shelley's ornate sign, cast a faint uplit glow on the figure that stood on the concrete lip of the roof, the long shapes of the tentacles at his back throwing strange shadows across the arial-tangled surface behind him.  
**Why are you uncertain, Otto? **  
'I'm not.' Otto mumbled, keeping his eyes on the last stragglers walking into the theatre below. 'I'm just thinking.'  
**But your thoughts are illogical.** The smart arms twined around him, their heads opening a fraction. He felt that they were more interested than agitated, and tried to explain.  
'I was just…thinking…about what we'll do tonight…it's only that I remember how much I liked Parker the first time we met. I thought he was an exceptional young man…gifted…'  
**And you were right. An exceptional, gifted…**  
'…brilliant…'  
**…brilliant, lazy, two-faced young man, who stood by and let you be demonized so that he might gain public acclaim. This is truth.**  
'I know…but Escher was trying to tell me something about him.' Otto felt the back of his head, where the bruise still smarted beneath his tangled, dusty hair. 'Perhaps I should have listened…'  
** Your determination is your greatest strength, Otto. Do not let yourself be clouded now. **  
He sighed, drawing his coat around him as a faint breeze stirred its frayed hem. Peter…the boy had admired him, and he in turn had been enchanted to meet such a kindred spirit, such a brilliant mind for his age, so much potential…  
And here he was now, about to take all that and snuff it out with as much ceremony as swatting a bug.  
The fact was that Escher's faltering little speech had been far more effective than she'd thought. As for her parting remark…well, from his reaction she could have been forgiven for thinking that her incautious words had merely enraged him, but in truth they had struck much, much deeper. It was a thought that had been festering away inside him for months, though for fear of his own dwindling sanity he had never given it a voice. Now, recognising that this was the last chance, the thought burst free.  
'What…would…she…_say?'_ He choked the words into his hand, fingers gripping his face, digging into his skin. 'Oh, God, Rosie, if you could see me now…'  
The arms were silent. They had always chosen to reserve judgement on this subject, their usual calm directives conspicuous by their absence. They recognised the fragility of their host's mind, and the peril of all matters concerning Rosie, and dealt with it as carefully as their A.I could navigate. They neither comforted or accused him, remaining safe from blame in their chilly neutrality.  
This time, however, the smart arm intelligence recognised that there was a third option, a way to turn their host's misery into productivity. The arms stretched out, the digits flexing, limbering up in calculating expectation.  
**It hurts, doesn't it, Father?**  
He started. He'd almost forgotten that his creations had once called him 'Father'. He remembered…

_In their original incarnation, before the accident, their powerless requests for directions in the lower regions of his mind had contained almost nothing else that could be recognised as words. They called him **Father,** a mark of subservience which continued for as long as the inhibitor chip was still functioning. The moment he'd drifted into consciousness, blind, to the stench of disenfectant and death and the chilling coherence of the words in his head…  
**Wake up, Otto.**  
…that had been his first indication that something was horribly wrong. _

Now, a claw dipped into his vision, the curved tip of one manipulator flicking against the metal of the goggles that lay, pushed up, against his forehead. The bridge had been fitted with its cover, and was now the same uniform black as the rest, though with a dull circle at the centre.  
**You're in pain.**  
He didn't need to speak. They knew his mind, and they knew its inevitable conclusion. The way out they were offering might be terrible, but the only alternative was worse. To go back to the warehouse, and everything it stood for, to hide away and continue with his scrapbook wall of bile…anything was better than that.  
**You can end it.**  
_Yes._  
He pulled the goggles down over his eyes, blinking as the early nocturnal blue was sucked from the sky by the smoky glass, and leaned out unhesitatingly over the void. The smart arms snaked downwards, claws ramming forcefully into the hotel's facade to modulate his descent. Safe in the rapid, capable 'hands' of his creations, falling was easy.  
He lifted his hands, the rushing updraft tugging at his sleeves. The electrode studs were cold to the touch. He felt a final stab of doubt-  
_ssshhk._  
-and then it was gone.


	13. Hero

_yay i give people nosebleeds! i got the power! i wave my fingers in a spoooky way and people fall over! dangit didn't work.  
well here we are at last. hum. one final THANK YOU to everyone who reviewed this, mailed me, or added it to their lists etc. i think that without you lot i'd still be noodling around somewhere in chapter three. and my god, kat.  
this is the first full length story i've ever finished, so I feel all glowy. now all i have to do is to figure out what the hell i'm going to do with the rest of my life now i'm not writing this every day. probably have the teenage equivalent of a midlife crisis and take up duneboarding. okay enough with the yap now.  
fasten your seatbelts. I guess._

**Part Thirteen- Hero**

_'Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Orpheus Theatre. Tonight's premiere performance of William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream will commence in a few moments. The management would like to request that all cellular phones and pagers remain switched off for the duration of the performance. Thank you, and enjoy the show.'_

The house lights dimmed around the packed auditorium. Programmes rustled and phones beeped as the audience leaned back into their folding seats, an expectant hush settling over the space. The heavy red brocade curtain rose into the cavernous space above the flies, revealing a golden-lit stage. It was dressed like a Greek palace, with large cushions strewn across the boards and tall white pillars against the backdrop, on which some manically enthusiastic scene painter had gone completely overboard on murals, trick-perspective architecture, and a window view onto a summery garden before he could be disarmed and led away.  
As the lighting faded up, into this classical set-piece strolled an imposing-looking man with an equally imposing-looking beard, followed by a woman in a flowing dress and a bevy of attendants. His character's name was Theseus, Duke of Athens, and he was clearly intending to live up to the title.  
_'Now, fair Hippolyta, our nuptial hour draws on apace.' _he boomed, his words relayed to the big speaker stacks by either side of the stage from the radio mike concealed carefully in his toga. _'Four happy days bring in another moon; but, oh, methinks, how slow this old moon wanes!'_  
In his seat, nearly in the dead centre of the auditorium, Peter watched the stage in anticipation. In the past week, he had rehearsed MJ's part with her so many times that he was nearly word-perfect on every scene which featured her character, to the extent that he was having trouble stopping his lips moving as the actors spoke. Any moment now…  
_'Full of vexation come I, with complaint against my child.'_ said one of the other men, who in the part of Egeus had a one-scene role and therefore an inferior beard. _'My daughter, Hermia.'_  
And there she was, the backlight catching her entrance in a soft glow, her fiery hair piled in floating ringlets around her shoulders, the arc lights lending a dazzling radiance to the flowing folds of her simple white dress. It seemed to Peter that the other actors receded into the background as she entered, and even though she hadn't spoken yet she claimed the stage from the moment she stepped out onto it.  
_She doth teach the torches to burn bright,_ Peter thought. It was a line from quite another play altogether, one that he had only encountered in high school literature class, and had never remembered or fully understood until this moment. He had felt the same way when he had watched her play Cecily at the Lyric Theatre- like his heart was working far too hard with pride and devotion, so much so that it was almost painful to watch her. He saw that she kept her glance roaming above the audience's heads, looking at everyone and no-one. It was an old professional trick, invented to free actors from the rather stunned look that could result from staring down into the glaring spotlights that ringed the stage.  
_I'll look at you once, tiger,_ she had told him, just a few hours before. _Watch me, and you'll see._  
Peter watched.

The back entrance of the theatre was located in a small concrete courtyard at the end of an alley, wide enough to allow delivery trucks to back in, though, as it was discovered after a couple of small disasters, not to turn around. There were no streetlamps, but a bulb above the door cast a mellow pool of light down the steps and across the yard. It illuminated a stack of old crates, some weatherbeaten posters of past events, and an actor who had stepped outside for a surruptitious smoke.  
There was a clatter, just beyond the light. The smoker looked up with mild disinterest as a bike arrived at some speed, followed a second later by a kid whose left foot was still caught up in the pedals. He watched as she struggled to extricate herself, finally letting the bike sag against the wall and straightening up, self-consciously tugging down the hem of her stripy hoodie.  
'Whoah there.' he said, sharply, as the girl started to walk up the steps. She stopped.  
'What?'  
'Where d'you think you're going?' The actor was not inclined to be polite. His part required him to spend most of the second half with his head stuck up inside that of a stuffed donkey's, the anticipation of which wouldn't improve anybody's temper. The kid looked up the steps for a moment, then turned and treated him to a look of the utmost disdain.  
'You mean they didn't _tell_ you?' she said.  
'Tell me what?' He held out a hand. 'Look, kid, I'm gonna need to see a stage pass before I let you through there. It's cast and crew only.'  
'Oh, for heaven's _sake.'_ she snorted. 'I don't know anything about stage passes, mister. All I know is that my agent called us up about an hour ago and said that they urgently needed an extra woodland sprite for Act Four, Scene 1, and to get down here as soon as possible.'  
'You're kidding.' The actor glanced inside the doorway. 'They changed it _again?_ No-one told _me.'_  
'I wonder why.' said the girl, the picture of stage-school precociousness. 'Now, are you gonna let me in, or do you want to spend your interval explaining to the director why he's one sprite short?'  
'No, uh, that's fine.' he said, hurriedly. 'Off you go.'  
The girl gave him a quick, exasperated nod, and walked up the steps. The door banged shut behind her. It was nearly a whole minute before the actor managed to clear his brain enough to say 'Hey, what the hell just happened?' But by that time, Escher was well inside the building and travelling really, really fast.

The play was going well. The audience sat in spellbound silence, listening with rapt attention as the actor's clear voices rang out from the speaker stacks. As the first half drew to a close, it would have been difficult to find a pair of eyes that had managed to tear themselves from the stage for more than a few seconds.  
There were, however, two exceptions. In the middle of the right-hand block, separated from the middle seating area by a broad aisle, a tall blonde in a slim-fit purple jacket leaned forwards in her seat, an elbow propping her head. Her head turned a fraction, and if anyone had been watching her instead of the play they would have seen her lips move in an almost indetectable whisper.  
'Schaf, are you receiving?'  
On the far side of the hall, Schafer lounged back in her seat, picking at the threads on her armrest. She did not, as a matter of fact, like Shakespeare.  
'Loud and clear. Can someone tell me if there's going to be a car chase in this thing?' She, too, spoke almost without sound. The tiny thing that looked like an ornate jet stud in her ear picked up and normalized her voice, transmitting it straight to the identical studs owned by her colleagues.  
'Don't think so. You see the hit?'  
'Straight away.' Schafer looked along the rows, down the curving well of the seats to where their target was sitting. Never mind Spring's photographic memory, there was no mistaking those glasses, not even from the back. 'Where's Murph?'  
_'Right here.' _The voice in her ear was a low hiss. _'Just got to get set up back here, then I'll go look for a clear line. Don't go anywhere.'_  
'Aww, but it's nearly the interval.' murmured Schafer mockingly, her voice a brattish whine. 'Can't I get a soda?' The man in the next seat glanced around, caught her eye, and privately resolved not to do so again for the remainder of the evening.  
_'Hell no. Sit tight. Over.' _  
Schafer opened her mouth to reply, but as she did so the people around her started clapping. She followed suit, turning back to the stage, where a temporary end of some sort seemed to have occured. After a minute or so of warm applause, the house lights slowly faded back up, and a large number of the audience started to get up and mill in the direction of the lobby, chatter filling the air like a swarm of relaxed bees.

Escher was well and truly lost. The backstage areas of the theatre were made up of a succession of corridors, small rooms, narrow staircases, and rehearsal spaces that tangled in on each other like a giant rabbit warren. She kept on having to hide as groups of actors and stagehands hurried purposefully past, making her dive into empty rooms and broom cupboards and badly upsetting her sense of direction. The only thing she was sure of was that her random direction choices were slowly directing her upwards. Even this was difficult to judge, because the building had had so many stuctural alterations over the years that it was full of pointless staircases, passages that sloped gently in both directions, and other disorientating features which, she couldn't help thinking, would have made her namesake proud.  
Escher hurried on, driven by urgency and a sense of nameless dread. She was pretty sure that, whatever it was that Doctor Octavius intended to do in this place tonight, he hadn't started yet. She guessed that she would have heard the screams. But on the other hand, every nerve in her body told her that there was danger here…  
She pushed open a door, and found herself in a huge room full of, well _stuff._ Shelf units lined the floor, stacked with objects of every concievable type. To her immediate left, by the door, there was an entire shelf full of different kinds of fake pot plants, right underneath another stacked with cuddly toys. Larger items of furniture, from armchairs and tables to bits of old sets, hung from the shadowy ceiling. The shelves formed a labyrinthine series of passages, through which glimpses of other aisles and their contents could be seen.  
Escher turned and looked at the door again, feeling a pressing need to reassure herself that she had not just stepped into some alternate dimension. There was a sign on the elderly wood, hand painted in loopy capitals.  
PROPERTIUS  
She took a few more steps into the room, and nearly jumped out of her skin as a voice, muffled but still audible, suddenly echoed around the cluttered shelves.  
_'Helen…it is not so.'  
'Disparage not the faith thou dost not know, lest to thy peril thou aby it dear!'_  
Escher stood in the dim light from the corridor outside, trying to calm down. Snatches of dialogue continued to float through the floor, and she realised that this huge room must be directly over the auditorium, the sound-conductive walls turning it into a giant sounding-board for the stage below. The interval was over, and by the sound of it some confusion-based Shakespearian argument was taking place. Escher's knowledge of A Midsummer Night's Dream was sketchy at best, based on one brief summer of drama classes. It had been just about enough to fool a rather stupid adult into believing that she knew what she was talking about, but now she could only vaguely guess that there was at least another hour to go.  
There was another, paler light source from somewhere up ahead, casting bright slits across the shelves. She advanced, carefully, picking her way through the aisles, passing cutlery and hats and weapons, twisting and turning between the shelves. She was just beginning to wish that she had some chalk to mark her path, or at least some bread crumbs to scatter, when she heard the _other_ voice.  
It came from the direction she was headed, the direction of the light, where she could just see through the gaps that the shelves petered out into a clear space.  
'No, I told you, we're staying where we are.' The voice was so quiet, so deliberately soft, that it was impossible for Escher to make out any familliar features. She moved closer as the the whispered words continued, still apparently talking to someone who couldn't be heard.  
_Or someTHING,_ thought Escher, triumphantly, edging along with her back to a shelf full of assorted ornaments, past a badly-stuffed bear that had been mounted on a stand and didn't look too happy about it. Its teeth gleamed as she gingerly inched past.  
'No, not yet, but I can see-'  
The voice stopped abruptly. Escher had stumbled slightly on an uneven board, and although the sound her foot made was tiny it was obviously not tiny enough. She froze, cringing, but when the voice failed to reoccur after nearly a whole minute, she started to feel a little stupid just standing there in the silence like she was a prop herself. Taking a deep breath, she summoned her remaining courage and walked to the end of the final row.  
Beyond the shelves, a short series of steps descended into an area that was curved like the prow of a boat. Here, part of the theatre dome had been surfaced with glass, creating a long, tall window which reached nearly to the high ceiling and flooded this part of the room with moonlight. The area was free from clutter and had clearly been built to act as a sort of crude light well for the rest of the room. The fragmented sounds from below were loudest here, appearing to emanate directly from the five or six shallow steps where, she guessed, the floor was thinnest.  
Escher frowned. This was definitely the place that the voice had been coming from…but there was no-one there. Leaning cautiously on the end of the final shelf unit, she cleared her throat.  
'Uhm…Doctor Octavius?'  
_Click._  
Escher felt something cold and hard touch gently against her skull, and looked slowly sideways into grey eyes and a wide, wide grin…  
'Guess not.' said Murphy.

By the time Escher had first found the prop room, the last audience member had been shooed politely back into the auditorium for the start of the second half. The man who had been responsible for most of this shooing had latched the big swing doors carefully behind them, and stood the red velvet queue-rope in front the doorway. Then he moved into his position by the side of the rope, and settled back into the vague switchoff mode that served to quickly pass the time between halves.  
You didn't need a good imagination to be an usher. There was no _'thinking creatively'_ in the job description alongside _'showing people to their seats' _and _'kicking out latecomers'._ If this particular usher had been given a Rorschach personality test before he was handed the bow tie and the little torch, he would have been revealed to be the sort of straightforward, plain-thinking person who called a spade a spade, a shovel a shovel, and a mess of inkblots a bloody waste of time.  
So when an impact of ground-shaking force in the street outside made the lobby floor jump and set the pendants in the chandeliers dancing in sympathy, the usher paid little attention. He looked up for a moment, but lacking the invention to guess what had caused the disturbance, soon lost interest.  
He found it again pretty quickly a few seconds later, however, when with a noise like a small grenade two of the outside doors errupted inwards in an implosion of glittering splinters and bits of carved wood. Outlined against the wrecked entrance, a terrifying, eight-limbed figure stalked (for there was no other fitting word for movement so full of predatory intent) into the lobby. Gaping, the usher was unable to form a single coherent thought as the intruder strode across the floor in a path that aimed right at the auditorium doors.  
'Whhhhhh.' said the usher, who at that moment was about as mobile as one of the heavy brass posts that held the queue-rope in position. He was rooted to the spot, which would have been fine if the spot in question hadn't been right in front of the doors.  
As the thing got closer, the hideous mechanical limbs that extended from its back arched around, their heads opening malevolently. The usher shaded his face automatically from their scarlet glow with a quivering hand, and saw that their host was wearing goggles, thick, round-lensed radiation protectors. And at the centre, between the lenses, there was a fifth glow. It was slightly smaller, but it was of the same bloody shade as the tentacle's heart lights.  
Then an arm snapped round, catching the usher in the chest and sweeping him aside as if he weighed less than a feather. The man hurtled backwards across the lobby, where by a stroke of luck he collided with a large display of plastic ferns, the cushioning leaves of which broke his fall but not his neck. The intruder didn't even turn to regard its handiwork. As the unconscious usher stopped rolling in a flurry of broken neopropyl stems, two more claws snaked out with balletic ease. This time, they were aimed straight for the auditorium doors.

_'Puppet!'_ screamed MJ, advancing across the stage with enough apparent wrath for a small army. _'Why so? Aye, that way goes the game! Now I perceive that she hath made compare between our statures, and with her personage- her tall personage- her height, forsooth, she hath prevailed with him!' _Her co-star, a elf-like Helena with white-blond hair, cowered away from her vengeful approach. Behind her, Andrew, as Lysander, leapt to restrain her as she curled her fingers spitefully. _'How low am I, thou painted maypole? Speak! How low am I? I am not yet so low but that my nails can reach unto thine eyes!!' _  
As this vicious Shakespearian version of a catfight continued, MJ found herself seperating, something she sometimes did when in the middle of a particularly demanding scene. Her character, Hermia, screamed, simmered, and finally allowed herself to be calmed down into stony silence as the dialogue progressed, but MJ watched herself as if from outside, controlling her performance like a sculptor working on a complex maquette. Finally, as she stood ready to exit, she caught her breath, looked out over the dazzling footlights, and found him.  
_'I am amazed…'_ she said,_ 'and know not what to say.'_ Yes, Peter was exactly where she had judged he would be. She couldn't stop herself smiling, for it was obvious in his expression that he really had been watching for the moment when her face would turn to his.  
Peter saw MJ look towards him, and his heart skipped a beat as their eyes met.  
Then-  
Then the world went slow and stretched, and his ears filled with a desperate rush of mental static, dragging his head into a rapid reflex twist that nailed his gaze to the double doors at the back of the sloping auditorium.  
Which exploded.  
People scattered, screaming, diving out of the way of the hail of chunks of wood and metal that rained down across the aisles. Peter ducked as part of an ornate brass door handle travelled over his head, burying itself in the back of the seat in front, then lifted his head cautiously and peered over the headrest.  
His eyes widened as they took in the nightmare shape that stood silhouetted in the light from the lobby. It was a shape he knew, all right, but there was something else about it, something new and very worrying. As he watched, a tentacle flicked out, moving with a ghastly grace that he'd never seen before, and thudded into a bank of seats, grabbing the whole lot and tearing them from the floor. The claw snapped around, ramming the bank into the remains of the doors and neatly walling them off. The audience's fleeing screams doubled in volume.  
'Oh boy.' he murmured. Behind him, MJ clambered off the stage and fought through the stampeding crowd to his row.  
'What happened?' she gasped, clinging to him.  
'It's Octavius!' Peter had to raise his voice over the racket, pulling her into the footwell beside him. 'Stay there!'  
MJ grabbed his arm as he started to climb onto the chairback.  
'Be careful!'  
'Stay - there.' he repeated, urgently, taking her hand and pressing it back against her chest. Then he flipped into the air, landing on his feet in the middle of the red carpet about halfway up the centre aisle. In the general mayhem, this stunt went largely unnoticed. Then again, Peter could have probably morphed into a space alien at this stage and attracted no attention from the panicked crowd. That was the thing about people, as he had discovered very early in his life as Spiderman. On their own, most of them were smart, observant, and calm. Stick them in a room with five hundred other minds, however, and give them something to fear, and the result is guaranteed make a herd of hunted wildebeest look level-headed and sedate. Especially when the only way out is blocked.  
Peter looked around desperately. All he needed was a hidden corner and a handful of seconds in which he could change. As always, he wore his suit under his clothes…all he needed was a moment-  
He wasn't about to get one. Heralded by a life-saving crack of static in his head, a tentacle bore down on him and would have laminated his ribcage across the plush carpet if he hadn't have thrown himself flat. He felt the lethal fissile blade trace a white-hot line across his shoulder, and rolled just in time to avoid another claw, this time an 'overarm' blow that made a small crater in the floor by his head. He jack-knifed upright, landing slightly off-balance, and looked up into the scarlet heart light that burned between his enemy's glass-shrouded eyes.  
'Doctor Octavius?' he said, desperately. Fearing the answer.  
A claw whipped out behind him. He twisted and dodged, leaning back straight into the embrace of another, which closed carefully, irrevocably, around his neck.  
**_'No.'_**  
Peter choked, struggling as the claw lifted him off the ground.  
**_'Much more.'_**

In the gloomy cavern of the props room, seperated from the auditorium by nothing more than a thin ceiling, the commotion below was very clear. Escher, however, barely registered it. She had problems of her own.  
The initial impact had shaken the room, filling it with a mulitude of strange noises as hundreds of bizarre items resonated or knocked against each other, and also demonstrating that whoever had originally stored the stuffed bear next to which Escher had paused had not been paying proper attention to their job. It had been leaning solely on its curved stand, and the tremor that ran through the floorboards finally proved too much for its delicate balance. This was why, barely two seconds after feeling the icy barrel of a Benelli MP90 marksman pistol against her temple, Escher felt it removed again, to the accompaniment of a _creak,_ a surprised _oof, _and a heavy_ thud._ Somehow she goaded her feet into a run, turning left and right and left again through the forest of shelves, sprinting with singleminded precision in the direction of _away._  
Pushing the weighty monument to Bad Taxidermy off his chest, Murphy stood up and shook his head, carefully screwing the silencer back onto the muzzle of his gun. Idly, as he started to prowl down the nearest aisle, he wondered how long it would take the kid before she found the door again, and how much longer before she realised that there was no handle on the inside. There was no need to rush. Whatever was going on below, it could wait. Murphy had absolute confidence in his two teammates to handle whatever it was, and besides which it was not in his personality to ever pass up the chance to indulge in a little fish-in-barrel target practice.  
'C'mon, kid…' he called, slipping around the edge of a rack filled with umbrellas. 'I'm not gonna hurt you.'  
Five shelves away, Escher stared incredulously at a sheaf of dried flowers. In her mind, cocking a gun at someone's head was not a demonstration of a trustworthy nature. She made a guess at the direction of the voice, and altered her route accordingly, backing up two rows and pausing momentarily by several stacked boxes of what looked like scarves. Who _was_ this maniac? Escher had a limited knowledege of the theatre, but she had a shrewd notion that stagehands did not usually go armed. Trying to breath silently through her mouth, she took another right turn around a shelf full of candlesticks and continued to creep along the claustrophobic aisles.

Peter could feel his consciousness starting to slip away. The claw was still tightening, little by little, around his neck, and his feet were thrashing helplessly at thin air. The thing that had only half an hour before been Doctor Otto Octavius watched him impassively, the other three smart arms opening their heads to monitor their enemy's last moments. Black spots started to dance in Peter's vision. As if from a long way off, he heard MJ's hysterical voice. Through the dull mists of suffocation, he turned his head and watched as his girlfriend half-walked, half-ran down the aisle, scattering frightened people and pushing past a tall blonde woman that appeared to be rooted to the spot by row K.  
'Let go of him! Peter! Let g-'  
He saw an arm swipe out, in the direction of the voice. Terror giving an edge to his movements, Peter jerked his legs upwards, managing to hook one of them around the tentacle. Barely six feet away, MJ dived for cover as the diverted arm whistled over her head, and Peter felt some of the strain leave his neck, his foothold taking the weight. Using this leverage, he managed to get his hands up around the gripping claw and tried to pull the digits away. He might as well have been trying to shift Mt. Rushmore for all the effect this had. However, the slight release of pressure did give him the use of his vocal chords back.  
'Don't…do…this…' he choked. 'That girl…Escher…she told me what you…hgg…what you've been doing…_hhkkk_how you f-feel…' His shoe slipped on the tentacle as it bucked, nearly losing his foothold entirely. As amazing as his wall-crawling ability was, it unsurprisingly didn't work through a leather sole. The thing which he was starting to realise was pure Doctor Octopus didn't react, to the talking or to the scrabbling. The claw tightened a fraction.  
'I _told _Jameson the truth…he di-didn't listen…_aghhh_…just wanted to sell…don't…' Peter searched his mind for something, anything, that might have an effect.  
'She said…she said you might not be too far gone.' Wrenching at the tentacle's iron hold, he stared searchingly past the goggle's light into the dark lenses. 'Don't…prove…her…wrong.'

Meanwhile, Murphy was getting more than a little annoyed. He could hear the sounds of the girl trying to be quiet clear across the room, but the layout was so confusing that even his fine-tuned sense of direction was struggling. He stopped, pistol at the ready, by a large picture of a fleet of ships in a gilt frame that he could have sworn he'd passed twice already, and decided to wait until his target blundered closer. As he did so, Spring's voice hissed in his ear, crackly and far from calm.  
_'…all going to hell down here, Murph! Got some…freak robot guy with four giant tentacle things coming right out his back trying to do our job for us!'_  
'What?'  
_'Went straight for Parker! Kid's got more nerve than I thought- he's trying to talk to the guy. Getting squeezed pretty good, though. What do we do?'_  
Murphy gritted his teeth. 'I'm busy here. Some goddamn kid saw me. Just take him out!'  
_'Which one?'_  
'Either one! Both! Whatever you do, _get Parker!'_ He ducked as he caught a movement between the shelves to his left. Crouched on the floor, he peered through the units and spotted a patch of stripy cloth in a gap three rows away. He levelled the Benelli and took aim.  
Escher had just recognised a shelf that she knew was somewhere near the door when there was a thin _crack_ somewhere behind her, and a plastic-crystal decanter by her side shattered. It took her a second for her to realise what had happened, in which time another shot hit the shelf by her head with a small _spak_ noise. Escher did what any other sensible, level-headed person would have done under the circumstances. She screamed at the top of her lungs.

In the auditorium below, Escher's scream was barely audible. Peter heard it, though he couldn't place its origin- his amplified hearing was a little distracted by the whole half-strangled thing. And, in the methodical processor of Doctor Octopus's brain, the high-precision audio signals from the smart arms were rapidly cross-referenced against memory data, and threw up a result.  
It was probably impossible to guess what happened at that point. All that remained of Otto Octavis was an intellect, his brilliant intelligence intergrated into an organic extension of the smart arm A.I. There was nothing in the resulting being's intentions that would have justified removing attention from Peter's demise for so much as a second, not even when the owner of the scream was identified. Against everything that Doctor Octopus planned to achieve by killing Peter that night, it was unimportant.  
And yet-  
The head turned, blank lenses angled at the distant ceiling. Peter gasped for breath as he felt the claw at his throat loosen. It was only for a second- but a second was all that was needed. Grabbing a mechanical 'finger' in either hand, he yanked the distracted claw open and dropped to the ground. His blood roared in his ears as his feet hit the floor, and for a moment he thought that he might just pass out where he stood. Then instinct took over, powering him towards the figure that hung supported between the two lower tentacles.  
Doctor Octopus turned back to his target, and just registered that it had gone when Peter arrived travelling upwards at a rate of about 10mps, the heel of his hand aimed straight at the red light at the centre of the goggle's bridge. There was a solid _crack._  
Landing in a crouch, Peter didn't wait to see the impact this had. Shaking some life back into his hand, he turned and sprinted up the aisle towards the blocked entrance, scrambling with ease over the twisted mass of chairs and through the narrow gap at the top. A sharp-eyed observer would have spotted him ripping at his shirt as he ran.  
Oblivious to this escape, Doctor Octopus stood transfixed. In the intricate pathways of the goggle's circuitry, something had just gone badly askew. The Mindmap chip, protected by the thick shield, was still conducting its scans, but Peter's blow had done something critical to the link between the chip and the rest of the goggles. As the information flow to the electrodes petered out, the brain they infiltrated started to flare and spark with neuropeptide reactions once again…

Murphy darted around a shelf, trails of cordite smoke streaming behind him from the muzzle of his weapon, and with a final lunge of one well-built arm grabbed Escher by the hood as she turned to run.  
_'He's gone! Parker just bailed on us!'_ yelled Spring in his ear. He growled incoherently at this, dragging the struggling girl backwards into the area beneath the big window. Restraining her against his chest, he placed the Benelli's silenced barrel beneath the angle of her jaw. He was just about to pull the trigger when, down at floor level, Mrs. Trainer suddenly met up with Mr. Shin. Caught entirely off guard, Murphy yelled and actually dropped the gun, and Escher twisted loose, kicked it across the floor, and ran.  
She got nearly five feet before a nasty little complicated _ka-klik_ froze her to the spot. She turned, dreadingly, to see the assassin standing in the pool of moonlight, still grinning, with the barrel of an even less friendly-looking gun trained straight at her heart.  
Murphy hefted his never-miss Galil SAR and closed one eye. 'Any last words, kiddo?'  
At the risk of ending her life on a cliché, Escher took a deep breath.  
'SOMEBODY HELP ME!!!'

Otto stumbled as the smart arms folded up around him, dropping him to the floor. As self-awareness dawned, it brought with it the withdrawal-nausea and complete disorientation. For a moment, he couldn't remember where he was.  
Then he heard Escher's scream and snapped into focus, the urgency of the sound overriding the flood of confusion that accompanied his returning personality. His tentacles shook themselves out, recovering quickly and catching on to his intent. The sudden loss of perfect union with their host left them with a void where their purpose had been, and in their confusion they went along with his will without objection.  
Two arms latched on to the overhanging balcony seats that ringed the auditorium, drawing him up into the air until he was level with the small VIP boxes on the stage side. These, and the upper level, were deserted, the audience up here having had the luxury of a pair of unobstructed doors, of which they had all had apparently made free use. Claw over claw, the smart arms ascended with incredible speed to the very top box, stretching out against the ceiling towards the place the scream had come from. A pause of maybe a second, during which a lower arm curled around with foresight to protect Otto's body from debris- because in a moment there was going to be debris in abundance- and then the two upper claws closed, tensed, and shot upwards.

In the props room, Escher was still staring straight at Murphy, and so had the satisfaction of seeing his smug expression drop off his face before the row of shelves behind her bounced upwards once, settled momentarily, and then vanished in an expanding cloud of wood and plaster. She spun around just in time to see the two shelves that had been standing on the spot cave outwards, hitting the pair next to them, which hit the pair next to _them…_  
A red glow grew through the flurry of falling dust and turned into the shape of a claw, rising through the remains of the floor like a fast-growing tree. It started to rain ephemera, hundreds of objects toppling from the stricken shelves and hitting the floor around Escher. Shielding her head as a motheaten badger in a glass case smashed by her foot, she ran towards the hole, punching the air.  
_'Yes!'_ she yelled. Relief made her reckless. She turned to Murphy, who had just managed to get up again, brushing splinters from his shoulders.  
'Any last words?' she mimicked.  
Murphy was a basically uncomplicated man. Under stress, he tended to be a little slow on the uptake, but when it came to shooting things he operated along very simple lines. Unexplained floor erruptions were confusing. You knew where you _were_ with shooting things. And the Galil was still in his hand.  
'You're _dead.'_ he snarled at Escher, aimed-  
Spitting like a viper, a tentacle snapped out of the haze of settling masonry and grabbed his arm. The assassin looked up in shock, and Otto stepped into the moonlight, the other arms forming a stiff tryptich of menace around his shoulders. Even with the goggles obscuring his eyes, his expression was clear and spoke of barely controlled rage.  
'You were saying?'  
Murphy mouthed soundlessly for a moment, and then made a bad mistake. Otto's eyes narrowed beneath the goggles as the camera eyes alerted him to the slow inch of the assassin's finger back on the trigger. He made a slight shrugging movement, and the gripping claw twisted with surgical precision. There was a _crack_ like a gunshot, and the Galil clattered to the floor.  
Otto waited for Murphy's scream to die away, and then leant in, close to the man's suddenly white face.  
'An…unarmed…girl.' he said, calmly. 'I'd like to be able to say that not even I would do that.' He glanced sideways, to where Escher was standing against the steps. 'But then, things have been rather…complicated, recently.'  
'He was talking to someone else.' said Escher, quickly. 'I think…I think they're here to kill Peter Parker.'  
Otto looked back at Murphy, an eyebrow arching quizzically.  
'What, you too?'

With the source of the audience's panic apparently disappeared, the atmosphere in the auditorium was calming slightly. Some of the more level-headed people, including several actors who hadn't yet managed to vanish backstage, were starting to try and disassemble the wreckage that blocked the doors. The stage was now completely deserted, the huge wooden forest set-piece that had been errected for Act Two leaning over slightly forwards, having not coped too well with the repeated tremors that had wracked the building. The rest of the audience milled around, a babble of alarmed voices rising up towards the crack-frayed hole in the far ceiling.  
MJ shoved through the throngs, searching wildly for one face among hundreds. Halfway down the narrow left-hand aisle, she stopped, scanning the rows.  
'Peter!' she yelled, urgently.  
A hand wrapped in strips of black cloth clamped over her mouth, dragging her behind a pillar with frightening strength. She caught a glimpse of purple nail polish and the cloth's odd skate-wax smell made her gag before a sharp hiss in her ear froze her thoughts.  
'Watson, isn't it? Looking for someone?'  
Schafer was _very_ quick on the uptake.

'PARKER! I think this belongs to you!!'  
Outside in the lobby, Peter stopped dead in his tracks as an unfamilliar voice from the auditorium called his name. He had spent the last few minutes looking for another way in that didn't involve the main doors, guessing that to go in that way would be to leave himself horribly open to anything that his enemy had planned in the meantime.  
He stood there for a moment, uncertain. Then he heard another voice, a frightened scream that dripped raw horror into his chest and threw him into a sprint towards the shattered doors.  
_'MJ!'_  
The people working on unblocking the entrance stopped and stared upwards as a red flash burst through the gap at the top of the doors, tumbling upwards on a silvery line to land in a crouch against the vertical surface of the balcony.  
On the other side of the auditorium, Schafer vaulted onto the stage, pulling MJ roughly up after her.  
'One false move and you'll never play a walk-on role again.' she murmured into MJ's ear, positioning a practised hand at the base of her hostage's spine.  
Over to the far right of the seats, Spring stared at the tensed shape that clung to the far balcony.  
'What in the hell is _that_ now?' she croaked. Shrugging her jacket from her shoulders, she extricated a scissor katar and two of her throwing knives, tucking one into the holder band sewn into her shirt. Rapidly, she wound the leather straps of the katar around her right arm, so that her palm was strapped into its simple grip-mechanism. She snapped the blades experimentally open and shut a couple of times, then began to head for the stage, talking quickly and viciously into her earpiece.  
'Murphy? Can you still hear me, you dumb bastard? What in the name of God have you got us into here? Parker's gone AWOL, Schafer's gone nuts, and now some kind of guy who sticks to walls just bust in here on a bungee rope! Where are you? Get your-'  
'Let her go!' shouted the masked figure, dropping into the main row of chairs and advancing, seatback by seatback, towards the stage. At the sound of his voice, Spring stopped in her tracks, dumbstruck.  
One of the main false ideas people have about photographic memories is that they work on sight alone…  
Spring started to run, pushing past knots of people and leaving a trail of panic as they spotted her weapons. She reached the stage just a few rows ahead of the hero, grabbing for the edge of the sagging setpiece to haul herself up.  
'Schaf!' she yelled, urgently, as her colleague turned to face her, pulling MJ around in a semicircle as she moved. 'That guy! It's Pa-'  
_Twonnng.  
Twonnng.  
…creeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaak…_  
Finally giving up the ghost in the face of such unexected strain, the cables that held the reinforced timber setpiece snapped free, allowing the structure that relied on them to keel gently forwards. Spring, Schafer, and MJ looked slowly up as the shadow cast by half a ton of rustic woodland scenery fell across them, eclipsing the bright stage lights and making everything in the growing patch of shade suddenly look very, very small...  
'…ah.' finished Spring.  
'…oh.' said Schafer.  
MJ opened her mouth, but before she could make a sound something hit her hard in the small of her back and yanked her backwards with all the force of a fairground catapult ride. She shot clear of the stage as if propelled by a powerful elastic band. The rows of chairs shot past underneath, but MJ was still moving, rising, her waist safely encircled by Peter's arm as he swung powerfully upwards on a long thread of web that was anchored on the edge of the balcony above. Behind them, a cacophonus splintering _whoooooooomph _announced the arrival of the set on the surface of the stage.  
'Where did he go?' Peter asked her, dropping her onto the last row of seats and balancing, heels together, on the chairback.  
'Through the roof.' said MJ, pointing rather redundantly at the very obvious hole. Peter looked up it thoughtfully, and said; 'Hmm.' Then he turned back towards the area around the stage, where people were making a good job of picking up the panic where they left off.  
'Stay there.' he said, and then shot out a line that snapped him up over the pandemonium towards what was left of the set. As he tumbled away from her, she caught his last words.  
'And I _mean_ it this time!'

Sitting on the shallow steps in the wreckage of the props room, Escher started as the sound of the set falling rolled up into the disturbed air like a tide.  
'What was that?'  
Otto looked up from his three-armed search of the man for concealed weapons. He didn't really have to restrain Murphy as such. Someone holding onto somebody else's broken arm has all the control they need. He shrugged, somewhat uneasily, and went back to his search.  
'I…we…caused a fair amount of damage down there.' he said. Absently, his upper left tentacle plucked the other sniper pistol from Murphy's gunbelt and bent it into a half-circle. The assassin moaned softly.  
'You…you didn't…um…' Escher trailed off.  
'No.' Otto said, shortly. 'There's an usher who's going to have a headache when he wakes up, and I imagine some people have splinters and so on, but no, I didn't.' _But I might have,_ he thought._ I remember wanting to._ He was glad for the goggles that hid his eyes.  
'I didn't think you would.' said the small voice behind him. He turned, and caught her watching him with a kind of hesitant pride. Despite himself, he smiled.  
'You just don't give up, do y-'  
_THWAK_  
Otto almost fell, the solid blow aimed at the side of his skull nearly knocking him off balance. The smart arms swung round, counterbalancing him, and gaped their claws as the balled fist of Murphy's uninjured arm soared over their host's head. The assassin screamed again as the claw that still held his broken arm twitched, and when Otto turned to face him he punched him again, as hard as he could, agony and fury lending force to the already professional blow that landed, as luck would have it, straight between the lenses of the goggles.  
Connections connected. Circuits closed. Tiny relays fired in the nerve centres of the goggles, sending the flood of trapped information surging towards the electrode heads once more.  
On the outside, however, there was only an unpleasant little electrical noise, and a gasp. Murphy's fist fell to his side as he looked up, feeling cold metal touch his skull in three places, and stared straight into the heart of a small, scarlet sun.  
'Oh, _no.'_ said Escher, getting up fast. 'Doctor Octavius! Hey! Look at me!'  
But the figure with the glowing light between its blank eyes didn't so much as glance in her direction. It was a singleminded machine with a man's head held in its claws, a man who had just tried to thwart its purpose, and as such it required no further input to act. Its arms clicked as they started to apply pressure-  
-and a paperweight hit it on the back of the neck.  
Doctor Octopus snapped round, one claw keeping hold of Murphy while the others sought this new threat. One of the heads closed just in time as a small ornamental weather clock bounced off the contracted digits.  
Escher backed off, looking for other suitable things to throw. Not that it seemed to matter, anyway- everything she hurled was fielded neatly by the smart arms, which swept the objects to the floor in between snatching cautiously at her. Far from being frightened, however, she found that she was furious.  
'I know you can hear me!' she yelled, ducking. _'Stop it! _Snap out of it!' She threw an elderly tap shoe and took advantage of the second this gave her to dodge in close, into the glare of the lights. 'You think I'm a threat? Well, you're _right!_ I'm not going to let you kill this moron!' She hurled herself under the reach of the arms, placing herself in between the stunned assassin and the searching heart light of the goggles. 'You're better than this! All you need to do is decide! If you're so smart with those things on, _decide!_ Either let go of him,' she nearly screamed, _'or kill me.'_  
Then her nerve gave out, resolve draining from her mind like someone had pulled the plug out as she looked up into the dead, glassy lenses. Screwing her eyes shut, she folded her arms over her head, and waited.  
And waited.  
Nothing happened.  
It continued to happen for quite some time.  
In the orange-shot world behind her eyelids, Escher could still see the red glow, but instantaneous gory death seemed to be failing to happen. Cringingly, she opened her eyes.  
Doctor Octopus was just…well…standing there, completely still, as still as a (highly unusual) statue. The smart arms were hovering above her, their claws open but unmoving. The claw that was gripping Murphy's skull didn't seem about to act either. The general impression was one of switchoff…or deadlock.  
Fraction by fraction, barely daring to breathe in case she tipped some precarious invisible balance, Escher raised her hands. The figure still didn't move as she reached up, standing on tiptoes, stretching her arms up past the tensed shoulders and around either side of the goggles.  
'I knew you could do it.' she whispered, and pressed the studs.  
_ssshhk._  
Otto shuddered as the electrodes withdrew from his skull, stepping away from Escher's hands instinctively and pulling the Mindmap goggles off with something like revulsion rising in his throat. He tugged at the interface tube, and a tentacle dipped helpfully to disconnect it, which it did rapidly with a sound like someone suddenly letting all the air out of a bike tyre. As the goggles came fully loose from his spine, he brought back his arm to throw them away…and then stopped and stuffed them wearily into the pocket of his trenchcoat.  
Behind him, the gripping claw flexed its fingers with a similarily distasteful flourish, and Murphy collapsed in a heap against the window.  
**Rat.**  
The smart arm's whisper was so apt that Otto couldn't help a short laugh. He felt lighter, unburdened, as if a lot more than a pound or so of metal and silicon had been taken from him with the goggles. Escher was watching him carefully, but she too was smiling.  
'What?' she asked.  
'Oh, nothing. We…just thought of something…funny.' he said. The word tasted alien in his mouth. Escher nodded, grinning, and started to try and shake some of the plaster dust from her hair.  
'So, what happens now?' she said, from the centre of her own little chalky avalanche. Otto winced. He had been hoping she wouldn't ask that, mainly because he didn't want to think about it himself.  
'I don't know. I…I suppose I should go and…go and…well…go.' He looked up. 'Peter told me…the same thing that you tried to tell me. I heard him- I heard _you_…it's just that I didn't- I couldn't- listen.' He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. 'Up until now, anyway.'  
'It'll be all right.' said Escher, with quiet conviction. 'You'll be okay. You've come this far, right?'  
Otto tilted his head. 'Thanks to you.'  
Their eyes met. It was a nice moment, and in a perfect world it wouldn't have been spoilt, and especially not spoilt by an insensitive, pain-crazy assassin who had no capacity to recognize pathos. Unfortunately, this is not such a world, as Escher discovered when, a split second later, a gunbelt wrapped around her neck from behind and dragged her into the shadows.  
The smart arm A.I, for all their perceptive comments, had failed to anticipate one thing about what they had decided was a neutralized foe. Certainly, the assassin was about as rat-like as something that walked on two legs could possibly be, but when thinking about this statement it is also important to remember what rats are famous for doing when they are cornered.  
'Okay, hold it right there!' yelled Murphy, yanking Escher with him as he backed unsteadily towards the darkened, toppled shelves. His good arm was holding the cloth around her throat, the other tucked untidily into his shirt. His bloodless face was tinged with grey, and the grin had entirely gone, replaced with something altogether more feral. 'I swear, you freak, you move so much as a muscle and I'll-'  
**The edge!**  
'The edge?' repeated Otto. Murphy stared at him, redoubling his grip on Escher as he continued to step backwards.  
'What?' he said, and promptly ran out of floor.

_As was politely yet firmly stated on notices all around the Orpheus Theatre, recording equipment of any kind was not permitted in the auditorium. It was a rule that was strictly enforced, the violation of which usually led to ejection from the premises and/or a fine of up to fifty dollars.  
However, that evening, a certain Texan tourist, name of Robin Montpelier, had somehow managed to slip through the net. This, as he would later swear to all and sundry, was due to him not knowing that there was a net at all, no sir, because he somehow missed all of the severe security notices and therefore had no idea that by bringing his state-of-the-art handheld digital camcorder to the performance he was doing anything wrong.  
Mr. Montpelier was not a great fan of Shakespeare, although Mrs. Montpelier was. Therefore, he found the events of the later part of the second half much more interesting than the scripted drama beforehand, and ended up capturing the whole sequence in a manner and quality which would have probably have made Steven Spielburg quite jealous. The resulting tape was sold to a leading New York television news syndicate within three hours of its creation, and the high price certainly matched the exciting and photogenic nature of the scenes it contained.  
After a bunch of muffled explosions and a lot of confused jiggling and screaming, during which time the camera appears to be avidly following the exploits of Mr. Montpelier's running left foot, the movement begins to calm down. For about five minutes, the tape documents in great detail a nosebleed sustained by Mrs. Montpelier, who, it transpires, has run into a wall while a little flustered. This part was intended to be evidence of the injury, shot in case, in Mr. Montpelier's own words 'we wanted to make something of it later.' It contains a great deal of close-ups.  
Then, somebody yells, nearby, and there is the distorted sound of a crowd of people all catching their breath at once. The camera tilts crazily upwards, and focuses on a large hole in the distant ceiling, a high-contrast gash of black against the white plaster. There is a shape hanging from the dark gap, or rather two shapes, two human figures. One of them is smaller, and appears to be clinging to the other's leg. The other, who as the image sharpens is revealed to be hanging on by one arm, is trying, through a series of jerky kicks, to shake the unwanted passenger off.  
At around the same time that someone close to the camera shouts 'It's a kid!' the larger figure suceeds. The kid (even at this distance, it is possible to make out the small, pale face framed by dark hair) loses her grip and starts to fall, tumbling with deceptive slowness from the high, high roof. A number of people in the audience react to this, and the camera is jostled momentarily as some inconsiderate person treads heavily on Mr. Montpelier's foot. By the time it re-focuses, the girl is nearly halfway to the auditorium floor, but up in the gap in the roof something else has also appeared. More screaming, this time in reaction to the new shape, which launches downwards from the hole like an Olympic diver with more than their fair share of limbs.  
Falling far faster than the girl, it twists face up like a cat, a movement unbelievably graceful for something so inherently bulky, and as they draw level one of the snakelike extra limbs curves up underneath her. With the ground imminent, the arm pulls her in towards the figure's chest, joining the other three as they curl around her, forming a protective embrace. It is just possible to see, in the grainy digital image, that as they fall the last few metres, even the man's two real arms move in to fold themselves across the girl's body.  
The ground-shaking impact as they hit the floor jogs the camera angle right up into the eaves, where the first hanging man is no longer hanging, or to be more accurate is now hanging in a very different way. A large, gluey net of something that glistens slightly silver has appeared, spreadeagling the man against the ceiling. The last thing that the camera sees, before all visual is replaced by a freindly blue screen and a little sign that reads 'Please Recharge Battery', is a red-and-blue streak of a shape, small against the curving roof, but getting bigger with incredible speed as it swings towards the auditorium floor… _

Escher heard someone sobbing. After a while, she realised it was her.  
Hands pulled at her, helping her upright. There was no more screaming. Silence seemed to be spreading across the packed auditorium, expanding in a hushed ring from the point halfway up the centre aisle where gravity had finally claimed its own. A couple of spectators assisted her as she managed a few shaky steps, the memory of the fall dragging sickeningly at her mind.  
Someone landed in front of her, a tall lithe shape outlined in bright red and midnight blue. She had to stare at the motif on his chest for a second before her dazed brain ground into gear.  
'…Spiderman?' she said.  
'I'm…sorry.' said the hero, his voice soft and leaden.  
'What?' Escher blinked, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. Spiderman's masked face lifted, his unseen gaze fixed on something behind her.  
She turned.  
Doctor Octavius lay on his back in the centre of the main aisle, his two lower tentacles still folded and draped limply across his chest. The other two were splayed from underneath his shoulders, reminding her once again of the bare spines of a pair of massive wings. There was no movement under the claws that fell over his ribs, claws which were half-shut in a manner similar to what a hand does if it is turned palm-up and allowed to utterly relax. His eyes were closed.  
Escher stared at the still body, which, in death, seemed surrounded by a serene aspect of peaceful dignity. She felt a sense of finality gather over her like a stormhead, waiting to break as she stood over the man who had saved her life and watched while a very thin trickle of blood started to seep from the corner of his mouth. Around her, she heard the crowd's muted murmur, though for all it meant to her the background noise might as well have been miles away.  
'Come on, kid.' said a well-meaning actor in a grey toga, attempting to steer her away. 'I mean, who could have survived a fall like that?'  
_Survived…  
From what I remember…  
…I certainly didn't expect to survive._  
Escher shook the man off and ran forwards, dropping to her knees by the nearest claw and trying to heave it off the ground. It was incredibly heavy, a dead weight of cold metal. She gave up, and instead prised the digits fully open, the various joints and articulators sliding unresistingly under her hands.  
'Hey!' she yelled, tugging the head so that the empty 'eye' at the centre was pointed directly at her face. 'Hello? Wake up! Do your job!'  
'Escher-' started Spiderman, starting forwards. Beside him, a pretty young woman with a white dress and piled red hair was watching her, biting her lip in sympathy.  
'They did it before!' Escher poked at the claw with an oil-stained finger, and then, when this had no effect, kicked it. This _did_ have an effect…on her foot. 'In the river! This is a picnic compared to that. They just need-to-wake-_up!!'_ She punctuated each of these last few words with a kick, then scrambled to her feet and glared at Spiderman. 'Help me!'  
'I would if I could, Escher.' he said, gently.  
'He saved my life!' Furious wasn't the word. Escher was incandescent with rage, white-hot anger against the whole stupid unfair world that had let this happen, and especially the part of it that was standing in a red-and-blue suit in front of her._ 'Do something!!'_  
Peter sighed heavily. Unlike the girl, he had seen the impact very clearly. He felt sick inside just thinking about the force with which Doctor Octavius had hit the ground, with all of his mechanical limbs curled around on top of him, where far from serving as cushioning protection for his back they were just more weight. He, of all people, knew that you just couldn't cheat the laws of physics; if you tried, they came back and kicked you in the teeth every time. He knew that, and he also knew with absolute certainty that Doctor Octavius had understood it too. And, knowing it, he had still decided to fall.  
Now, shaking his head, Peter stepped past her towards Otto's body, over the folds of the trenchcoat that spread out in dark tatters around him. He knelt, and reached a hand out for the doctor's wrist, his mind already searching for the right words with which to gently remove Escher's deluded hope.  
'I can't-' he began.

_skreeeek._

With a flexing rattle, the claw which just a few moments ago Escher had been trying so hard to move lifted slowly from the floor, a light flaring at its centre. Starting as a flicker no stronger than that of a sick firefly, the heart glow faded up as the claw scanned the crowd, then appeared to focus on Peter. The young man withdrew his red-gloved hand with exaggerated care, leaning back on his heels in an attempt not to communicate any hostile intent. The crowd breathed in as one, moving backwards and expanding the clearing in the forest of watching people.  
Then the other three arms twitched, discovering themselves arranged uncomfortably underneath their host's back. The lower claws opened, gaining purchase on the carpet to push up under his body and arch across to nudge him into an upright kneeling position, hanging from the upper two tentacles with his head drooping forwards as the lower claws gently pushed and posed him like a doll. When he was arranged to their satisfaction, they stopped and hovered around him, waiting in a manner that those watching would have sworn was expectant.  
Otto opened his eyes.  
As the harsh gasp of his resumed breath burned in his throat, all he could see was a lot of coloured blurs, a shifting nonsense haze of confusing lights and shades. A couple of blinks resolved the blur directly in front of him into a shape he knew, the quickly standing-up figure of Spiderm- of _Peter._ Beyond that, he got a vague impression of a wide ring of astonished faces, all watching him with a variety of expressions on the theme of admiration, fear, and respect. Sensing his consciousness, the smart arms extended, helping him get to his feet.  
_Did we really-_  
**Yes.**  
Standing upright was problematic. He felt as if the parts of his brain which were supposed to release pain-blocking endorphins in situations like this had decided to go on strike, perhaps as a firm reminder that they didn't appreciate being switched on and off like a set of Christmas tree lights. As a scientific explanation, this left a lot to be desired, but it would have explained a lot. His ribs, shoulders, and back above the spinal brace were a single mass of agony.  
Peter was still standing in front of him, in a completely non-confrontational way which still accidentally on purpose placed MJ securely behind him. Otto fixed his gaze on the concealed eyes of the young man who he had intended to kill, and slowly raised his hands in a gesture as unhurried and calm as any movement made by a man whose back felt as if it had been doused in petrol and set on fire could reasonably be. Behind him, the smart arms retracted, their heads closing as they dipped towards the floor. It was not in their design to look friendly, but at least they were making the effort.  
'Well, you caught me.' he said, quietly. He could hear the crowd muttering, ripples of sound spreading around the hall.  
Peter straightened, dropping his defensive stance and breathing a huge inward sign of relief.  
'Me?' he said. 'It looks to me like you've caught yourself, Doctor Octavius.' The mask moved slightly when he smiled.  
'Just in time.'  
Otto stared at him, his arms still held up in a textbook Surrender Pose, Fig.1. He had been entirely- if unhappily- resolved to face whatever Spiderman, allied with the forces of justice, intended to do with him. This new development left his keen but battered powers of cogitation floundering like a beached tuna.  
'You don't…you're not going to…'  
Further attempts to articulate his shock were cut off as a new sound filtered in, faintly, from the partially cleared lobby doors. It was quiet for the moment, but the growing siren quality was unmistakeable.  
The smart arms started to stir with a modicum of urgency. Disregarding them for the moment, Otto continued to look straight into his former enemy's hidden eyes. As the crowd started to look away in the direction of the noise, only Peter saw the smile.  
A faint _dink_ rang in the air as someone rapped on the trailing head of Otto's upper left tentacle. He turned, to find Escher standing directly behind him, her freckled features lit up with a grin as bright as a pinball machine that had just hit the top score.  
'You're dry this time.' she said, and hugged him.  
  
_…whoah hold up there that's not quite it. it nearly is. soon. i promise. arrgh._


	14. Flying

_eppy log. w i smile. I also apologize for mix up. is fixed now.  
...I hope.  
thank you everybody for your reviews, ideas, and patience. I give you all the stealth glomps. oo_

**Part Fourteen- Flying**

The sky was golden, blanketed with patchy cloud cover that held the rich evening light, filling every nook and cranny of the city that stretched beneath with soft velvet shadows. A warm sleepiness hung in the air, the sort of dreamy almost-dusk heat that breeds contentment. Up above the rooftops, the setting sun flashed a million reflections into the colour of an Aztec treasure, glancing from window to window as it sank serenely towards the horizon.  
As the stretching shadow of an opposite tower block crept across its roost, a starling took off from the striped canopy of the sidewalk deli where it had been perching and floated up on the gentle thermals, rising in a long lazy spiral until the red-and-white canvas was a tiny square on the distant ground. The shorter buildings dropped away beneath the bird's unhurried wingbeats, a series of ascending glides powering it up the face of a monumental skyscraper that grew from the surrounding block like an ancient oak tree in a field of saplings. The rough surface of the wall was barely a foot from the bird's tiny chest as it swooped into a nearly vertical climb, a blurred pattern of brickwork that appeared to rush past downwards, gaining speed with every beat. Just as it seemed that this reckless flight path could surely get no closer to the brick, the wall came to an abrupt end, and the skyscraper's roof unrolled before the bird's sharp little seed-bead eyes. The honey-coloured magic-hour light was still strong this high up, glancing from the sprawl of satellite dishes and arials at one end of the roof and falling across the flat surface to the western side, where a lone figure stood, a strange shadow outlined against the glowing horizon.  
Closing ebony wings almost to its sides, the starling rolled into another swoop, this time taking it in a dipping path above the roof, skimming the stack at the centre and passing inches from the figure's shoulder.  
The smart arms turned their heads momentarily as the bird soared past, following its course out across the rooftops below. Their brief curiosity spread to their host, who looked up from his silent perusal of the gravel at his feet to watch the starling's gliding flight until it disappeared out of sight between two office blocks. He was still slightly out of breath from the climb, and as his arms switched their attention back to him, he breathed in deeply, wincing as he did so.  
**Otto?**  
There was an edge to the voices that he didn't recognise. They sounded tentative…almost afraid. It was the first time they had addressed him since the previous night.  
'I'm here.' he said.  
**We thought perhaps that you would refuse to listen to us.** Still, the whisper had an odd inflection. It was nearly as if the smart arms were trying seek his reassurance. Otto frowned, still facing the building's edge.  
'I…didn't think I had that option.'  
**You will always hear. But to listen requires what you call 'trust'. And…we think…you do not trust us.**  
'I…need you.' he said, wearily.  
**And you are afraid of us,** replied the arms, matter-of-factly, **and there are times when you hate us. You think us capable of great evil, and so you do not trust.**  
'What do you know of trust? Or pride, or fear?' Otto shook his head, picking at the threads that hung in frayed loops from the cuff of his left sleeve. 'They're just words to you. I know better than to ascribe emotions to your actions. Why do you think I wanted to become like you? You are aware, but you can't _feel._ You know nothing of hate, or love for that matter. You're simply thinking cybernetics. Heartless machinery.'  
**All we know of human thought comes from you, Otto. If we are 'heartless,' then it must be your own heart that is lacking as a model. We say this regardless to the fact that the heart is an organ which circulates the blood, an apparently irrelevant example.**  
'You see? You can't even understand a simple turn of phrase. You know my mind better than I do, but you'll never understand what I feel. You don't know what it's like to feel lonely...or... to grieve...'  
**Then enlighten us,** the arms cut in rapidly. **Teach us. These concepts seem to provide no challenge to human brains. Surely, then, we can understand them, given instruction.**  
''Love' can't be taught. As for 'hate', if you haven't picked it up by now, after everything you've seen…everything you've done…then you never will.'  
**We did not act out of hate. We acted out of need. Your need. **  
The rumble of helicopter blades sounded faintly through the clouds. Otto tensed, a claw snapping up to find the source. Only when the visual receptors had identified the craft as a commercial flight, far too high to have a clear view of the rooftop, did he reply, his shoulders relaxing slightly. 'But you were always pushing me, persuading me…'  
**You wanted us to.**  
'Wanted…?' Incredulousness flattened his voice to a hiss.  
**Of course.**  
'When I couldn't sleep for your voices in my head, telling me what I could be doing in the wasted time? When every day brought more poison hurled at us by the city we saved? When we nearly murdered an innocent child because she got in the way?'  
**Nevertheless, it was what you wanted. If your state of mind, as we understood it, required us to motivate you, we did so. We could sense your pain, and therefore we worked towards ending it. We were essentially designed to protect you and further your projects, Otto. And now you tell us that we drove you to hate?**  
'You drove me mad, once.' he said, softly.  
**Before the river. And even that could be argued.**  
'We've killed-'  
**You have never killed. **The voices came back like a whip, sharp and emphatic.  
'But-'  
**YOU have never killed.**  
Otto tried to think about this, but he couldn't focus on the idea. It flickered just beyond his understanding like a mirage, buoyed up by the absolute certainty of the smart arm A.I. in his mind.  
**At least trust us on this.**  
He sighed and pulled the Mindmap goggles out of his pocket. The molten sunlight flashed on the lenses as he turned them over in his hands.  
'I was so sure they'd work. I thought they would solve everything. I wanted them to stop me feeling so confused…conflicted…I wanted to stop having to care about the morality of our actions…'  
**Morality. Right and wrong. Truth and lies. Even though we experience these things through you alone, Father, we still learn. We never understood why you chose the river when we were so close to success. We did not know why the scream of a girl about to die made us hesitate when we were about to destroy the greatest threat to our purpose. Or why we deliberately risked our existence to protect another human, when we knew the fall could have damaged you beyond our ability to bring you back. **  
The arms lifted slightly, a tremor running along their articulations. One of the claws nudged him, gently, in the back of his bowed head.  
**What we can understand is that, on all these occasions, it was what you wanted. **  
Otto looked up.  
'What…I wanted?'  
**Yes. Regardless of confusion or confliction. The only possible justification we can find is that, even when it could cost you everything, you are…designed…to do 'right.'**  
His creations turned their heads towards him, the whisper in his head feeling its way tentatively towards a reasoned conclusion.  
**And…essentially…we are designed to assist you.**

As this measured statement hit Otto with all the force of a ton of rubble, he heard a scrape of scattering gravel behind him. Shelving the conversation for the moment, the upper right claw snapped around, taking in the spread of the roof behind its host in the whiteout, high-contrast vision of its camera eye. Still reeling inwardly, Otto had to wait a moment until he could trust his own expression before he turned around himself.  
'Hello, Peter.'  
The new arrival straightened and stretched his athletic scarlet-blue shoulders, arms extended upwards in a laced-together arch. 'Hi, Doc.' he said. 'I've been looking for you all day. I was kind of worried about all those search choppers they had out last night.'  
'You needn't have been.' said Otto, shrugging his coat's high collar up against the fresh evening breeze. He reached up with one hand and riffled through his hair, trying absently to tease out some of the knots. Possibly fingers weren't going to be enough; it was really a job for a comb. Or a hedge trimmer. 'I'm happy to say that even the full might of the NYPD has yet to live up to the standard set by a certain sharp-minded young man with a pair of jumper cables.'  
Peter smiled. Up here he felt safe from the city's watchful eyes, and- Otto's company nonewithstanding- he peeled his mask back to hang hood-like behind the nape of his neck. This silent sign said a lot more than words ever could about the trust he was willing to place on his companion's integrity, and from the care with which Otto failed to comment, Peter knew that the gesture had not gone unnoticed.  
He was just about to reply when he noticed the smart arms flick up, claws gaping urgently in his direction. Otto looked up sharply, his line of sight aimed over Peter's shoulder. And then his accentuated hearing caught it too, the growing thumps which, as he spun round, were sourced at the brick stair stack in the centre of the roof. Quickly, he reached back and drew the material of his mask up over his head once again. Just as he did so, the handle of the peeling green-painted maintenance door started to turn.  
Then it stopped, turned back, and rattled up and down for a bit with increasing force before stopping altogether. There was a pause.  
'A little help?' The voice was muffled, but hopeful.  
Peter and Otto exchanged an incredulous look. One rooftop appears more or less the same as another when you are a) not paying attention, b) approaching from the air, or c) about one hundred and sixty-nine hours without sleep.  
'Where are we?' said Otto, urgently, tentacles extending around him like the spines of an alarmed porcipine.  
Peter stared for a second before the long-practised mental map of the city which he carried around in his head took over his mouth.  
'We'd be around…72nd? Uh…about halfway along, maybe?'  
'So, around about Lyndstrom Heights, maybe?' said Otto. His smart arms reached out in front of him as he approached the door, their claws opening expectantly. The handle rattled again.  
'Somebody?' called the voice from within. 'It's not locked, just stuck. It just needs a pull or-'  
_ Skrunch._  
Blinking in the tawny sunlight, Escher stepped over the remains of the door.  
'-something.' she finished. There was a muted _dink_ as one of the tentacles opened and dropped the doorhandle at her feet. She looked up and smiled slightly nervously at Otto, the patter of falling splinters making a soft rain around them.  
'Thanks.' She was wearing the same purple-and-black striped hoodie as the previous evening (albiet without the plaster dust).  
Peter stepped around his companion. 'How did you know we were up here?'  
'Four massive_ thuds,_ a jar of pencils jumps right off my desk, I open the window, and a few minutes later _you_ swing past upwards going _fwooooooooooshthwipthwip.'_ She shook wood fragments from her hood. 'You superhero guys aren't exactly zen ninja masters of stealth.'  
Both non-zen-stealth-ninjas smiled at this. Privately, Otto noted the _you superhero guys,_ a phrase which spawned an odd butterfly tweak of something approaching pride in his stomach. Escher looked from one to the other, and then addressed him with earnest concern.  
'Anyway, when you left before the police got there last night…I didn't even have the chance to ask you if you were okay.' She pulled a face. 'It's just that when I hugged you…I could have sworn I, uhh…felt stuff grate.'  
'Oh, I'm fine.' said Otto, smiling dismissively. 'A few bruises. Nothing a Band-Aid or two won't fix.'  
Escher looked more than a little doubtful, shifting uncertainly and tilting her head to rub the back of her neck. 'But…it was a hell of a way to fall…' she said, slowly.  
Otto took a deep breath. 'The smart arm A.I calculated our trajectory against the height and rate of our descent, utilizing our bodies' natural negative G-count fields to create a significant reduction in our gravitational potential energy. Then, at the point of impact, the spinal brace acted as a rudimentary newton-sink, according to Morgenstern's Exokinetic Principle; dispersing most of the force through the atomic structure of the surface underneath. I could explain in more detail, but I'd need a blackboard and a set of bucky balls.'  
The three of them stood there for a minute, while Escher's blank-frog look morphed gradually into a relieved smile.  
'No, I think I'll take your word for it.' she said, eventually. Another pause, during which she treated her shoes to a period of intense, embarrased scrutiny. Her voice, when it reappeared, was low and stumblingly sincere. 'Um…can you tell them thanks from me? For bringing you back, I mean. It's weird…since I've known you, I've been practically scared out of my skin every five minutes,…but the only time you really, _really_ frightened me…was when I thought you were dead…'  
She broke off, biting her lip.  
'Thank you.' said Otto, softly. Escher looked up, giving him another pinball smile.  
The moment lasted until one of the tentacles gaped slightly, the faint _eeek_ this created breaking the silence. Escher turned to Peter, who had been standing tactfully off to one side during this exchange.  
'So, I guess nothing's happening anywhere else if you're here.' she said brightly. The young man shrugged.  
'It's a slow evening. I took care of a couple of robberies earlier. Nothing major.'  
She grinned. 'Nothing like last night?'  
'Yeah, well, I'm hoping that nothing's gonna top last night for a while.' Peter said. 'Would you believe that M- uh, that that play's sold out three weeks in advance now? I think people are buying tickets just so they can go along when it reopens and say they've been.'  
'Well, that's people for you.' said Otto, dryly. 'Always ready to applaud a spectacle.'  
'Agh!' Escher's sudden exclamation made Peter start and Otto's tentacles click agitatedly. 'I knew I'd forgotten something! Wait there, I'll be back in a minute.' She turned in a flurry of dark hair and purple stripes, and disappeared inside the dark maintenance stairway, taking three at a time.  
A stillness descended on the rooftop as her leaping footsteps died away. Then Peter, apparently very interested in the wall of the nearest building, coughed.  
'"Natural negative G-count fields."' he said, adjusting his mask absentmindedly.  
'Yes, well.' Otto knuckled his forehead irritably. 'It was the best I could do off the top of my head.'  
'No, no, it was really…convincing. Especially the part about, um…"Morgenstern's Principle."'  
Otto smiled, ruefully. 'I didn't want to upset her.'  
Replaying the landing he'd witnessed the previous night in his mind's eye, Peter shuddered. 'Do you need a doctor?'  
The look he got in reply was both appreciative of his concern and questioning of his sanity. 'Can't exactly walk into an A&E clinic, can I?'  
Peter nodded, feeling a sharp stab of sympathy. He had thought that he had problems, having to explain his superhero injuries within the confines of his normal life, but at least he could remove his costume and look superficially no different from anyone else. Whereas someone in Doctor Octavius's position had the worst of both worlds.  
'Anyway, I'm still standing,' Otto continued, 'so I think it's safe to assume I'll be all right once everything sets. Just don't ask me for a repeat performance for a while.' He glanced down at the goggles, which were still hanging by the band from his left wrist. Peter followed his gaze.  
'What are you planning on doing with those?' he said.  
Slowly, Otto unhooked them and held them out, a tentacle lifting them from his fingers and extending them across the rest of the distance. 'I suppose the chip should go back. I don't care what happens to the rest of them, Peter. I can't wear them again.'  
Taking them with care, the masked hero held the Mindmap goggles up to the sunset light, examining them avidly. 'They're amazing…'  
'And they should never have been created.' said Otto, bluntly, swinging round to face the roof edge once again. Peter caught the expression on his face as he did so, and lowered the goggles, looping the band around his own neck for safe-keeping. He was still searching for something to say when a sound like a minature rugby team in clogs thundered up the hollow wooden stairs of the stack and Escher reappeared, breathless and hemorrhaging bits of colour supplements from the crumpled _Daily Bugle_ under one arm.  
'Look.' she said, and unfurled the front page, obscuring her face entirely as she held it up for both to see.  
For a while, the two of them stared at the verbal car crash of black and red letters that, as usual, consituted a typical understated _Bugle_ cover story.  
**A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S SCREAM!!!  
OCK AND SPIDEY TRASH THEATRE, DOZENS INJURED.  
** Finally, abruptly, Otto let out a short laugh.  
'I've…seen worse puns.'  
_'I_ haven't.' said the front page, muffled but still indignant. From the _snerk_ that issued from underneath Peter's mask at that point, it was safe to assume that he was trying not to laugh himself.  
'Well, at least it's completely fair.' he said. 'I'd say there's pretty much exactly as many opportunities for a libel case in the stuff about you as there is in the stuff about me.'  
Escher emerged from behind the paper, passing it to Peter. 'I hoped you'd see it like that.' she said. 'It's utterly clueless about both of you. That's why this kind of thing isn't…worth caring about in the first place. You know that…don't you?'  
This last part was addressed to Otto, who appeared to be momentarily lost in his own thoughts. The smart arms curled a little closer to him, with their heads fractionally open, and his head was tilted in a way she recognised; his dark hazel eyes distant as an exchange took place behind them.  
'Escher's right.' said Peter, after what he judged was a long enough interval. 'Sure, there's the _Bugle_'s opinion…and then there's the opinion of anyone who was in that theatre last night, who saw a man that they were supposed to hate and fear throw himself to his death to save a falling girl. I know which one I think would be worth a place on _my_ wall, and you can bet it isn't the one which…' and he squinted distastefully at the block headline text of the cover, '…would probably make Shakespeare spin in his grave.' He glanced up, catching the shadowed eyes.  
'What do _you_ think, Doctor Octavius?'  
'Otto.' corrected Otto, vaguely. There was a silence of a few hazardous seconds until a new look dawned on his face, and this time it was a complicated expression which nevertheless spoke clearly to the two watchers; not only of the anticipation of long-overdue justice, but also, unmistakeably, of completely non-lethal intent. A pair of claws reached over to carefully pinch the copy of the _Bugle_ from Peter's hands, before tearing it deliberately up the middle with a lesiurely _scrrrriiiiiiiiip._  
'We think…that it's about time to go and pay Mr. Jameson a little visit.' he said, and his voice was calmness incarnate with a backbone of rusty razorblades. 'What do you think…Spiderman?'  
Peter smiled, a tide of relief coursing through him. 'I think that's a good idea. I've got to say it's been in the back of my mind for a while now.'  
'Well, then, there's no time like the present.' said Otto, stretching stiffly. Around him, his creations rose and flexed. A claw felt for his pocket, withdrawing a folded pair of new, sleek-lensed shades. The head flicked up, the sudden movement shaking the shades open, and dipped to slide them neatly over his eyes.  
'Time…' said Escher, suddenly, her own eyes widening. 'What time is it?'  
**Nineteen point three four point two eight six. **  
'Just after half past seven.' Otto translated.  
Escher squeaked. 'I've got to pick Jamie up from his friend's house at eight!'  
'Where's that?' said Peter.  
'Robertsworth Close…7th…' replied Escher, trailing off as a shadow fell across her. Shining hightlights caught off the replaced sections of Otto's upper left smart arm, the scarlet heart light at the centre of its claw brightening as it extended swiftly to encircle her waist with three careful digits of mottled, scar-spanned metal.  
'Hold on.' said Otto, and smiled at her. It was a small smile, but it didn't fade, and it was absolutely, warmly, real.  
Peter scanned the skyline with an expert eye as he stepped up to the edge beside them, masked head turning like an eagle searching for its next target. 'So, we go and, uh, 'talk' to Jameson.' he said, quietly. 'And afterwards?'  
Otto paused on the very lip of the building. Like a championship diver poised on the board, he stared straight out in front of him, while at his back his arms stretched out and tensed. The upper left _whirrp_ed gently as it lifted Escher gracefully off her feet, her bright striped hoodie a strange, oddly pleasing contrast against the dull olive greys of the smart arms and the dark shades of his own clothes.  
'Afterwards…I'm going to sleep.' he said, with utter conviction. 'And after that…who knows?'  
For the first time in months, he realised, he was thinking about the future, and the thoughts were not painful.  
**After all…**  
'…it's a big city.' he murmured.  
The young man by his side gave him a sideways look, and spoke in a voice which, although tinged with caution, mingled respect and admiration with a growing seed of hope.  
'Big enough for both of us, Otto?' said Peter.  
Far above, the starling circled. The summer sunset flamed on the horizon, painting the city beneath in glowing amber as the soaring bird rose up, ever higher into the golden sky.  
'We'll see.' said Otto, and leapt.

_...cue intro to in the shadows by the rasmus. I personally think the words are perfect, as well as that intro being perfect for a blackout-pause-roll-credits movie ending._

anyway.

the end. 


End file.
